


Going Down

by concannonfodder



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: AU, Alexis is trying to be a good sister, Alternate Universe, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Banter, Blow Jobs, But also it's not nearly as porny as the title makes it sound, Chapter nine finally earned the E rating, Closeted Character, Coming Out, Eventual Smut, First Kiss, First Time, Flirting, Fluff, Gay Bar, Hand Jobs, International Relations, M/M, Mutual Pining, Rimming, Shower Sex, Slow Burn, Trapped In Elevator, boys falling in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:54:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 151,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22515058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concannonfodder/pseuds/concannonfodder
Summary: The Roses never lose their fortune, and David never moves to Schitt's Creek. He's facing down the prospect of spending New Year's Eve alone, when fate traps him in an elevator with a certain Canadian tourist.
Relationships: Alexis Rose & David Rose, Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Stevie Budd & Patrick Brewer
Comments: 673
Kudos: 1375





	1. David

_I shouldn’t be here._

It’s the only real thought David’s had since he arrived at the hotel, and for good reason. The first red flag should have been the fact that the party was taking place in Midtown. On New Year’s Eve. It was like willingly throwing your birthday party on the seventh level of hell, between the level for people who stencil stick figure families on the back of their minivans and the one with all the Klansmen.

The hotel had been a red flag unto itself. No doorman, a lobby that hadn’t been updated since John Lindsay was mayor, and an elevator that had creaked, shuddered, and lurched so many times on its seven floor journey that David had considered pushing the button for an earlier floor just so he could get out and use the stairs.

And then there was the guest list, which included not one but two of David’s painfully recent exes. Both relationships had ended abruptly, and neither had done so by David’s choice. And if being tossed aside like an overripe avocado that wasn’t even fit for guac wasn’t bad enough, he was positive that they’d both made off with at least one of his favorite eye creams and his Ole Henriksen Vitamin C Serum, leaving him both alone and with noticeably duller skin. Red flag number three.

Maybe all those red flags are actually what stop him from completely losing his shit when he walks into the suite, an over-generous description of a hotel room if there ever was one, and sees said exes wrapped around each other. He can’t say the universe didn’t try to warn him.

David doesn’t care to get much closer, but from his vantage point it appears as though they are attempting to excavate one another’s tonsils using nothing but their tongues and sheer force of will. He does a quick survey of the room, and quickly comes to the conclusion that nearly every person in it is completely and utterly shitfaced. It isn’t even nine o'clock, but almost every flat surface he can see is covered in half empty bottles of vodka, tequila, or, and he shudders at the very sight of it, _Jagermeister_.

He doesn’t need to see any more than that. He turns on his heel and marches back towards the elevator, having never even made it through the door.

**

He stalks down the hall towards the elevator, phone in hand. He’s flipping through his contacts, trying to think of someone to call who might be able to help him salvage his night. He’s drawing a blank. His problem isn’t a lack of numbers, but an unwillingness to dial any of them. Most of his friends had made their New Year’s Eve plans more than a month ago, and were currently drinking and dancing and snorting their night away in places with strict guest lists and no plus-ones admitted.

He didn’t even want to call the ones attending decidedly less exclusive shindigs. It wasn't necessarily that he was worried they wouldn't be interested in helping him. It was simply a matter of pride. Nobody tries to pull together a spectacular New Year’s Eve party at 9:03 PM on December 31st. And if they are trying, it’s probably because something has gone tragically, embarrassingly wrong for them, and no one wants that person at their party. That person drinks all your sambuca and cries in the only available bathroom, forcing everyone else to hold it or pee off the fire escape.

He was not going to be that guy.

He scrolls back to the top of his contacts list and pauses, his thumb hovering over one name. He stops in the middle of the hall, clicks it, and begins to type.

**David: so that was a bust**

He stares at the screen for a few seconds and sighs. Like she was going to be checking her phone right now. He wasn't one hundred percent sure what country she was in at the moment, let alone what state of sobriety. Chances are good to great that she’s in the middle of her own glamorous party right now, heralding in the new year amongst a group of billionaire men and their twenty-five year old third and fourth wives.

So he's surprised when the three little dots appear to indicate that she’s writing back.

**Alexis: im shocked**

**Alexis: im not really**

**Alexis: like, at all. sarcasm doesnt work thru texts.**

David curses under his breath. He doesn’t know what else he expected from his sister.

**David: thx for the support**

**Alexis: i told you it was a bad idea**

When he doesn’t respond immediately, she continues.

**Alexis: how bad was it?**

**David: they were about two seconds away from fucking each other up against a wall when I walked in**

**Alexis: they?**

**David: you know.**

**Alexis: oooooooooohhhhhhhh. The Doms.**

**David: i told u not to call them that. it makes it sound like they co-own a sex dungeon.**

**Alexis: dont date people with basically the same name then**

**David: fine, dont date people who try to use you as a drug mule to get across the border in macau**

**Alexis: that was one time!!!!**

**David: one time too many**

The three dots appear and then disappear five times over the course of a minute. Alexis is either writing a novel, or she’s re-written the same sentence fifteen times over.

**Alexis: sry you had to see that**

**David: so am I**

**David: but thx**

**Alexis: in front of everyone?**

**David: trust me, everyone was too fucked up to notice**

**David: or care**

He hears his phone chime a few seconds later and looks down expecting to see another text from his sister, only to find that she’s actually calling him instead.

“Hello?” he yells, expecting to compete with a raucous party behind here.

“God David, why are you shouting?” Alexis asks at a much more reasonable volume.

“Aren’t you at a party right now?”

“Umm, no. It’s like four in the afternoon, I just woke up."

“Wait, where the hell are you right now?”

“Sydney.”

“Australia?!”

“Duh.”

“Don’t ‘duh’ me! You were supposed to be in London tonight.”

“Plans changed. Collin had a seat open up on his jet - ”

“I’m sorry, who’s Collin?”

“You remember Collin!” she insists. “With the hair!”

“And the jet,” David adds dryly.

“Exactly,” she replies, missing his sarcasm entirely. “Well a seat opened up and he asked if I wanted to see the new year before the rest of the world.”

“There’s a pick up line I’ve never heard before.”

“Oh shush David, Collin’s sweet.”

“They’re all sweet, until the try to sell you on the black market.”

“That was - ”

“ - one time,” he finishes for her. “Yeah, I know.”

He can hear her huff on the other end of the line, and has no trouble picturing the pout on her face even from ten thousand miles away.

“I was just calling to see if you were okay,” she finally says, the pout now gone from her voice.

David feels a small surge of affection at her words. There was a reason she’d been the only one on his phone he actually wanted to talk to right now.

“I’m fine,” he says. “I’m always fine, you know that.”

“Mmkay David." The pity in her voice grates at the last of his nerves. "I know that you are single, sober, and texting you sister at nine o’clock on New Year’s Eve. You’re not fine.”

“Alright then, thank you for the kind words, I’ll see you next year.” He pulls the phone away from his ear but doesn’t press the button to end the call.

“No David wait, don’t hang up!”

He stews silently for a moment before he hears her ask, “David? Are you still there?”

“Yes,” he finally relents. “I’m still here.”

“I knew it,” she gloats. “Look, I’m sorry tonight turned out to be such a bust for you. Where are you going now? Are you still at the hotel?”

“Hotel is a very charitable term for this place.”

“That bad?”

“It’s like a tenement building for hard on their luck cockroaches. I’m going home.”

“Gross. You’re sure? You don’t want to try to salvage the night?”

“At this point drinking a bottle of wine and being in bed by eleven would be salvaging the night.”

He starts to slowly make his way to the elevator, pressing the down arrow when he reaches it.

“I guess…” she trails off, clearly with something more to say.

“You guess what?” He hears machinery groan behind the dull metal doors and reconsiders his original idea to take the stairs when Alexis’s voice distracts him.

“Nothing. I just...I really want you to find someone - I don’t know. Someone nice.”

“And I don’t?” He jabs at the button rapidly now, even though he knows that it doesn’t actually make the elevator come any faster.

“You don’t date nice people. You date hot people, and stylish people, and people with expensive taste. But you definitely don’t date nice people.”

He knows she’s right, and so does she, and they both know he’ll never admit it aloud.

“I could try,” he says, the closest thing to an admission he’s willing to make.

“Well please do,” she replies. “I worry about you.”

“ _You_ worry about _me_?” he laughs. There’s a role reversal if he’s ever heard of one.

“Yeah actually, I do. Which is why I want you to call me when you get home.”

“Are you kidding? I’m a grown ass man, who died and made you Adelina?”

“Just do it David. The city is nuts on New Year’s Eve, and Midtown is even worse. Text me, whatever, just let me know when you’re back at your apartment okay?”

“Ugh, fine,” he agrees, as though some part of him doesn’t take a little bit of satisfaction in having her be concerned about his well being instead of the other way around for once. He heard the elevator grind to a halt at his floor. “I have to go, I’m about to get on an elevator, I’ll lose the signal.”

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll talk to you soon, right?”

“Yes, right, I said I’d call you. Try not to get human trafficked! Bye!”

The doors crank open as he taps the button to end the call. He’s too busy staring at his phone to see that there’s already someone standing in the elevator. He doesn't actually notice until he slams head first into Patrick Brewer.


	2. Patrick

_I shouldn’t be here._

It’s the only real thought Patrick’s had since he arrived in New York. The whole trip has felt off from the moment he set foot on the plane in Toronto. Despite being not the least bit superstitious by nature, he can’t shake the feeling that there is a black cloud hanging over his plans. The source of that cloud, he is now convinced, is the fact that there wouldn’t even be a trip if he had just sucked it up and gone home for Christmas. 

He had planned to, he really had. His parents had insisted on Facetiming him during Thanksgiving dinner, the first major holiday he’d ducked out of, and made him promise, with the whole extended family on speaker, that he’d be there for Christmas. He couldn’t have said no if he’d wanted to.

He was surprised by how much it hurt to see them all squeezed in on that little screen, gathered around the table over his mom’s roast turkey. 

He knew Aunt Nancy would already by three sheets to the wind thanks to Uncle Don’s heavy handed pouring of her gin and tonics. There would be a four way shouting match later in the evening over the Leafs chance at the cup, with his cousin Stacey being the lone hold out that it was finally time for the Canucks to break their curse. His father would need to find someone else to play cribbage with over dessert, as that was normally Patrick’s role, and the thing that probably pained him the most to know he was missing.

As sure as he was that moving to Schitt’s Creek, or really moving _anywhere_ , had been the right thing for him to do, he had underestimated just how tough it would be to live so far from his family. But he had to, because distance from his family also meant distance from Rachel. After calling off their engagement for a third and, God willing, final time, that distance was absolutely necessary.

He couldn’t risk staying close to her, physically or emotionally. He was convinced that was what had always allowed them to fall back into things so easily. He’d ask to take some time apart, but when you live in a place where the population has never passed beyond triple digits, ‘apart’ becomes a relative term.

It’s why he had chosen to settle in a town almost a thousand miles away, fifteen hours minimum by car if you figured out a way to avoid ever having to eat, pee, or sleep. There was nothing relative about that distance. That distance said ‘We’re done, and I’ve put an entire province between us to prove it’. 

He still had every intention of coming home for Christmas, just like he’d promised. But as he watched the days tick by on his calendar, he felt a weight begin to settle in his stomach. It sat there uncomfortably, all the time, growing heavier and heavier the closer the 25th of December approached. Eventually it began to talk to him. 

_You’ll have to see her_ , it said.

_She’ll stop by just to say hi to your mum, drop off some fruit cake, and you won’t be able to ignore her._

He tried to ignore the voice, pretend it wasn’t there, but it just got louder.

_She’ll invite you out for a drink, she’ll ask in front of your whole family so you can’t say no. You don’t want to embarrass her._

The voice was loudest at night, when he was trying to go to sleep. But then it started to creep in during the day, in the middle of phone calls, when he was ordering lunch at the cafe.

_You’ll drink too much. You always drink too much when you’re nervous. You’ll drink too much and she’ll look at you with those big brown eyes and she’ll slide a hand on to your knee and she’ll ask you why. Why did you leave, why did you need time apart, why can’t we be together just like we used to?_

When it came time to buy his plane ticket home, the weight in his stomach felt like a pile of lead and the voice was practically screaming at him.

_What are you going to tell her then? Are you going to tell her you don’t love her? That’s not just mean, it’s a lie. Are you going to tell her you don’t love her the right way, the way she wants to be loved? Are you going to tell her you’re -_

He slammed the laptop shut before he could complete the booking.

The phone call to his parents had been tough. 

“But Patrick, you promised. We already missed you at Thanksgiving, we haven’t seen you in months.” The fact that his mom wasn’t actually trying to guilt him, that she genuinely missed him and was hurt that he was going to miss another holiday, made it worse than if it had just been a classic guilt trip.

“I know mum, I’m sorry, I really am, but I just can’t take the time off work.”

“If it’s the cost of the ticket then you know we’d be happy to cover for you,” his dad chimed in. “Or there’s Terry, she’s been with the airline for ten years now, she’s always saying that if we ever need her discount - ”

“Dad, really, it’s not about the money. Everyone’s trying to get their paperwork into the town before the new year. I’m working right up until Christmas Eve and back at it after Boxing Day. It’s a small town, there’s no one to cover for me.” 

It was a lie of course, probably the most egregious one he’d ever told his parents, but what else could he tell them? 

_Sorry guys, I’d like to see you, but not as much as I’d like to avoid having a really awkward conversation with the woman you once thought was going to be the mother of your grandchildren._

He swore he heard his mom turn away from the speaker at one point to sniffle, and if anything was going to break that would have been it. But before he could allow himself to cave, his father had spoken up and told him they understood, that these things happen, that having to make choices like these was just one of the hard parts about being an adult.

He wanted to ask his dad when he was going to get to any of the easy parts, but bit his tongue. 

The weight in his stomach had disappeared as soon as he ended the call and was immediately replaced by a healthy dose of shame. This was a stopgap measure at best. He’d managed to avoid one potentially tense holiday, but it wasn’t like he could never go home again. What would he do the next time his parents invited him and there was no holiday work crunch he could blame?

The relief he’d felt at not having to face Rachel over Christmas was further balanced out by just how lonely he discovered a Christmas in Schitt’s Creek was when he had no one to share it with. He’d figured he could at least count on Stevie to keep him company, only to find out she was leaving on the day before Christmas Eve to see her cousins in Sudbury. 

He decided his best bet was to ignore the holiday entirely. He threw a frozen pizza in his oven, cracked a beer, and tried to catch up on some tax forms he’d been avoiding. He supposed there was some sort of karmic justice in the fact that he’d lied about having to miss going home for work, and work was how he’d ended up spending his day after all. 

Patrick managed to make it through Christmas, albeit miserable and alone, but with the expectation that when he woke on Boxing Day, the worst of it would be behind him. So he was surprised when the first thought to cross his mind after hitting the snooze button on his alarm was: _what about New Years?_

He let out a long groan and buried his face in his pillow. He’d forgotten about New Years. He’d forgotten about the fact that every year for the past fifteen years, he and Rachel had counted down from ten, watched the ball drop, and kissed one another as they welcomed the new year. Even in their on-again/off-again phases, they’d somehow always found themselves ‘on’ whenever New Year’s Eve rolled around. 

Something about the idea of going three for three on spending his holidays alone in Ray’s spare bedroom broke him. He just couldn’t do it. If he was going to spend all these days wallowing in self pity, he could have done it at home, surrounded by family, friends, and yes, his ex-fiancee. 

He made a split second decision, which was not a kind he had ever made before, and decided that he was not going to spend another day missing out on actually living his life. He was reaching for his phone when he heard a knock on the door. Before he could say anything, Ray opened it and peeked his head inside.

“Everything alright Patrick?”

“Everything’s fine Ray, why?”

“Oh, nothing, I just thought I heard this kind of, what’s the right word...moan - wail - no, moan is more accurate. Well, I heard you make a rather sad noise and I thought I should come check on you.”

Patrick took a deep breath and told himself that Ray meant well, and that he probably shouldn’t throw his phone at him to get him to leave the room.

“No Ray, no moan here. Hey, do you remember what we talked about with the whole knocking and opening the door at the same time thing?”

“That it defeats the point of knocking in the first place?”

“Right.” He stared at Ray pointedly until it finally clicked.

“I see. I’ll just be going then. Merry belated Christmas by the way.”

“Yeah, uh, you too.”

He had opened his phone and was searching for his cousin Terry’s number before Ray could finish closing the door. He was worried she’d still be asleep, or maybe in the middle of breakfast with her kids, but she picked up on the second ring.

“Hi Patty,” she said warmly. She was the only person in the family that he let use that nickname. 

“Hi Ter-Bear,” he replied.

“I saw your mum and dad last night, they missed you.”

“I know, I really missed them too, I just couldn’t make it out there this year. Work and all.”

“Hmm,” was the only response he got back. He wondered how one person could imbue a single syllable with so much doubt. 

“Um, anyway, I wanted to take you up on that offer for friends and family discount you have with the airline, if it still stands.”

“Of God, of course! Ten years and you’ll be the first one in the family that’s used it.”

“Really?” he asked.

“Yup. I think everyone is convinced that it’d be rude to ask, and they don’t want to impose. Which is ridiculous, we have an employee website all set up to help us book the flights, even hotel and rental cars too. Brewers are all just too polite for their own good.” 

“There are worse things to be,” he suggested. 

“Maybe,” she replied, not sounding particularly convinced. “So you’re going to try to come out for New Years then? There’s at least a dozen daily flights into Thunder Bay that I could get you on, if you've got a day in mind?”

“Uh, no actually, I was kind of thinking of somewhere else, maybe around the 30th.” He’d been so quick to make the call that he hadn’t considered that she would assume he’d want to catch a flight home. 

“Oh,” she said, clearly surprised by the request, but she quickly regained her composure. “Um, sure. I can get you anywhere in the world that we service. And by world I mean the US, Canada, or Mexico, but it’s better than nothing. What'd you have in mind?”

Shit. When he decided that he wasn’t going to spend New Year’s Eve alone in Schitt’s Creek, he hadn’t actually thought of a destination more specific than ‘not home’. He tried to think of a city, any city, that he might have an actual chance of enjoying on his own, but his mind kept flashing back to the image he always associated with New Year’s Eve: he and Rachel curled up on the couch in his parent’s basement, a blanket covering them, Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve on the television. 

“New York,” he said, not allowing any time to talk himself out of it. 

“Well that makes sense.” He was relieved that she didn’t seem to want to convince him to change his mind about Thunder Bay. “If you want the real New Year’s Eve experience, you may as well go to the source.”

“That's what I was thinking. You won’t have trouble finding a flight? I’m sure they’re all pretty booked this close to the date.”

“Well you might have to get up at the ass crack of dawn to make the flight, but I’m sure I can find something. Give me five minutes, I’ll call you back.”

Over the course of those five minutes he changed his mind about going almost twenty times. He had to stop himself from picking up the phone and telling Terry never mind, something came up with work, he wouldn’t be able to take the trip after all. He was reaching for his phone to do just that when he saw the screen light up with Terry’s name. 

“Well I was right about the ass crack of dawn prediction.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, sorry bud. The best I could do was a 6 AM out of Toronto on the 30th, putting you in JFK by 8. You’ll be coming back the 3rd of January, same airports, also at 6 AM. Hope you consider yourself a morning person.”

Patrick was speechless. He hadn’t expected her to actually go ahead and book the flights for him. He thought she’d call back with a couple options and he’d be able to make some excuse as to why none of the dates really worked for him, but thanks so much for checking.

“Umm, no. I mean, that’s no problem. The early flights, they’re fine.”

“Perfect. I also took the liberty of booking you a hotel for your trip. Now this is really last minute, so the pickings were pretty slim. It’s not The Plaza is what I’m saying, but it is near Midtown, which is good if you plan to go watch the ball drop.”

“Wow, that’s...amazing. Thank you. You really didn’t have to do that.”

“Don’t worry about it, I knew you weren’t going to ask so I figured I’d just do it for you.”

“Well, thanks. I mean it. What do I owe you?”

“Nothing, it’s on me,” she replied brightly.

“ _Terry_ \- ”

“Don’t ‘Terry’ me, it hardly cost me a dime. I had a free ticket with the airline that was going to expire if I didn’t use it before New Year’s anyway. I’ve got three kids Patty, I don’t get to take spur of the moment trips to New York like you do. Someone may as well enjoy it.”

“And the hotel?” 

“I only had to pay the sales tax, not that this place is charging top dollar anyway. Call it a Christmas gift.”

“I really don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything, maybe just call your parents more often. I'm the one who has to hear about it when you don’t.”

“Okay,” he laughed. “I can do that.”

“And Patrick…” she hesitated.

"What is it?”

“Nothing. It’s just...well, I could - I mean, if you wanted me to - I could always get Rachel a flight too? I know you guys used to talk about visiting New York someday so I figured...I don’t know. It was just an idea, forget about it.” She sounded like she regretted having brought it up at all.

“Terry, we’re not together anymore. You know that. I’m…” he trailed off.

_What?_

That stupid voice was back again, though not quite as loud as before. 

_What are you Patrick?_

Terry’s voice pulled him back to reality. “I know, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just, you guys have broken up before. You’re not together until you are, you know? But I guess this time is a lot more…”

“Permanent,” he offered. 

“Yeah.” She didn't sound thrilled by the description. “Okay, so I’ll email you your ticket confirmations and the hotel reservation. You just need to print them off and show up to the airport on time.”

“Seriously, I can’t even begin to thank you enough. I owe you one.”

“You owe me zero. You’re family, the only family that’s ever bothered to use the damn discount in the first place.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “But thanks all the same.”

“No problem Patty. Just...um, just please remember that you can call me. If you ever have something on your mind, and you just need someone to talk to, maybe someone who wouldn’t immediately pass everything you say on to your parents? Well, I’m here, if you need me. So don’t forget that.”

He wondered if she was saying what he thought she was saying. If she knew. Or maybe just suspected and was fishing for some sign or clue from him. 

“Thanks Ter-Bear,” he finally said, deciding not to press the issue. “I will.”

**

The hotel was definitely not The Plaza, Terry had been right about that. He knew he didn’t really have a right to complain about a free hotel room but when he’d unfolded a towel on his first night only to have a dead fly fall out of it, he felt as though he was allowed to make some judgements. 

He immediately got on his phone and tried searching for other hotels he could switch to, but Terry had been right about just how slim the pickings were. Unless he wanted to stay somewhere on the New Jersey-Pennsylvania border, he was going to have to tough it out. 

The obvious solution to him was to spend as little time in his hotel room as possible, which was easy enough to do in New York City. He’d spent his first day there checking off every cliche tourist spot he could think of: the Empire State Building, the Museum of Natural History, Central Park, Rockefeller Center. 

He pulled out his camera, ready to take pictures of everything he saw, only to be struck repeatedly by the thought that he had no one in particular to share them with.

He didn’t have any social media presence, a decision he’d found served him well when it came to making a fresh start in Schitt’s Creek. There was nothing for anyone to dig up, no pictures with his arm wrapped around Rachel’s waist that might cause some to ask _who is she, don’t you two sure look close?_ But it also meant that whenever he had something he felt like sharing with his friends or family back home he was left with the option of email or a group text. 

Email made him feel like a senior citizen spamming his ungrateful grandchildren with weird chain emails. Group texts felt better for casual conversation, not eighty high resolution pictures of landmarks that most people could just as easily Google if they really wanted to see them. 

He sampled something from almost every food cart he passed, thankful for a bit of variety after almost an entire year with nothing other than the Cafe Tropical to frequent for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He decided he loved doner kebab, despite the fact that he wasn’t one hundred percent sure of what kind of meat he was eating, and that dirty water hot dogs were a profoundly overrated experience. 

At one point he popped his head into a random bar just to take a look at the menu, only to pop it right back out again when he saw what they were charging for a single beer. And he thought Toronto was expensive.

He had to pack it in early, having woken up at 3 AM to make it to Toronto in time for his flight. He crawled into bed, trying not to think about how long it’s been since the sheets had been washed, and was asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.

He woke up early on New Year’s Eve, intent on taking a ferry ride over to Ellis Island and seeing the Statue of Liberty, only to open pull back the curtains to a miserable looking mixture of sleet and freezing rain. The black cloud that he’d felt hanging over his thoughts had finally materialized into an actual honest to God black cloud.

The ferry ride to Ellis Island was out of the question, as was the walk across the Brooklyn Bridge he’d been considering. There were a few more indoor activities that he could cross off his list, but the harder he tried to work himself up to put on his coat and walk out the door, the more he wanted to stay inside for some good old fashioned wallowing. 

Which is how he finds him sitting atop the bedspread in his decrepit hotel room, with its peeling paint and water stained ceiling, at 8:57 PM on New Year’s Eve, and thinks to himself for the hundredth time that day that he should have just sucked it up and gone to see his parents for Christmas.

He turns on the TV and flicks through the channels until he finds one where Andy Cohen is taking shots of tequila with Anderson Cooper, Time Square framed behind them. The temperature is still hovering around the freezing mark, but the rain has let up some in the last couple hours. He looks at the panning shots of the crowds pouring into Time Square from every direction, most of them with nothing more than their eyes visible behind mounds of scarves and toques, and thinks to himself that he’s an idiot if he stays in this hotel room for the rest of the night.

Two blocks away over one million people are making the choice to brave shitty weather and massive crowds just so that they can say they actually participated in the human experience. Meanwhile Patrick is sitting in his Shawshank style accommodations wondering whether he should just cave in and make an Instagram already. 

It’s the slap in the face he needs. He grabs his coat, hat, and gloves, and bundles up like he’s about to make an Arctic trek, as though he doesn’t live in a part of the world that sees lower temperatures than these at least five months out of the year. He considers leaving his backpack behind, not wanting to worry about whether every person he feels brush against it is trying to pickpocket him, but decides he might want to keep some snacks and water on hand if he gets stuck in the crowd coming back. 

He checks his phone: 9 o’clock exactly. Good, plenty of time to walk to Time Square and maybe hear some of the musical performances before the ball drops.

He pulls the door shut behind him and hears the dead bolt lock into place, not that there’s anything inside he thinks anyone would find worth stealing. He hesitates when he reaches the elevator, having already taken a handful of painfully slow rides on it during the two days he’s been staying here. He glances over at the door to the stairwell but then presses the button anyway, figuring he won’t bother waiting for, but he'll take it down if it's there. Finally some luck: it opens right away, already at his floor. 

He steps inside and presses the button for the lobby. The doors shudder close and he takes the opportunity to try and make out the date on the framed permit that’s supposed to declare the last time the elevator was inspected. The first two numbers of the year are definitely **2-0** , but the last two are nothing more than a small black smudge.

The display screen flashes the number five and he feels the unit slow to a stop. He groans internally, knowing if he’d just taken the damn stairs he would probably already be on the street by now. 

The doors open to reveal a tall and rather striking figure staring down at his phone and dressed head to toe in black, save for a ring of white lightning bolts that jut out from the collar of his sweater. Heavy black boots, artfully torn black jeans, and a black pea coat that looks incredibly stylish and far too thin considering the temperature outside. Patrick is so taken aback by the outfit that he hardly has time to get a good look at the man’s face. A face he finds himself rather up close and personal with as David Rose slams into him, head first.


	3. A little stuck

David's forehead makes contact with the man’s nose, resulting a sickening crunch. 

"Oh shit -" 

"Jesus christ, watch where - 

"- ouch, ouch, fuckity, ou -" 

"- is it broken-"

"-made of cement or something?!"

David stops rubbing his forehead long enough to actually look at who he'd just collided with. "Did you just ask if my head was made of cement?" 

The man gingerly touches around his nose, flinching when his fingers tap the bridge. "Or brick," he says through watery eyes. "Maybe lead, I don't know."

"Wow, rude."

The man drops his hands from his face entirely and turns his full attention to David. " _I'_ _m_ rude? You ran into me because you were too busy looking at your phone to see where you were going! Which is like the most basic rule of society at this point."

"Okay, yes, I was looking at my phone and no, I wasn't watching where I was going, but it was an accident."

"Then apologize!" 

"Fine, I'm sorry!" David throws his hands up in the air as though he’s surrendering, which is exactly what taking responsibility feels like to him.

They’re staring at each other, two grown men in a very small room, and it seems to click for them both at the same time just how quickly they’ve gone from zero to shouting in the space of about ten seconds. David feels the small rush of adrenaline that came from the burst of pain in his forehead begin to subside. 

The other man’s posture appears to relax a bit, the fight going out of him in response to David’s loud and vaguely sincere apology. “I’m sorry too,” he says, surprising David with an apology of his own.

“For what?”

“The shouting,” he replies. “And the thing about your head being made out of cement.”

He gestures up at David’s head, and David feels his face flush a little.

The man, now that he gets a better look at him, is kind of cute. In an L.L. Bean catalogue way, sure, but cute nonetheless. He’s wearing a pair of worn in brown walking boots, dark jeans that David might describe as ‘sturdy’ if he was feeling charitable, and a navy blue Patagonia puffer jacket. Adding a bit of weird ‘child of the late 90s’ flair to the whole ensemble, he appears to have a flannel shirt tied around his waist, partially obscured by the jacket.

His face is soft, but not in a particularly feminine way. It just lacks any harsh angles or sharp edges. The eyes are a deep brown that’s actually kind of striking in a way that brown eyes rarely get credit for, what with blues and greens getting all the fanfare. His hair is kept short and neat, though his face is sporting at least two days worth of scruff. Normally this would add some age or at least maturity to a man’s look, but David doubts that even a full viking beard would be able to take away the boyish charm present in his face. 

The man clears his throat and David becomes aware of just how long he has been silently staring at him. His face flushes worse than before and he tries to shake off the wave of self consciousness that threatens to envelop him.

“It’s fine,” he says, waving it off. “You’re not the first person to accuse me of being hard headed.”

A smile breaks across the man’s face and David is reevaluating his previous designation of ‘cute’. Handsome, he decides, is the much more accurate term. 

The man lets out a laugh, and David would swear it was genuine if not for the fact that his joke really wasn’t very good.

“And I’m sorry too,” David adds. “You were right, I should have been watching where I was going. I was just…”

“Distracted?” the man suggests. 

“Mmhmm. Unfortunately.”

It’s the man’s turn to wave off the apology, something David knows he really isn't obligated to do. “It happens.”

“I didn’t break your nose did I?”

The man brings his hand up to his face and gives it another cursory exam. He crinkles it up and relaxes it a few times, which David finds gives him a remarkable resemblance to a rabbit. He takes in a deep breath, in and out, and comes to a verdict.

“I think I’ll survive.”

“Are you sure?” David asks, remembering the sound it had made when he'd slammed into it. “If you wanted to get it checked out I would totally understand, there’s actually an urgent care two blocks south, I can take you there.”

“No, really, it’s fine. I’ve broken my nose before, trust me, you don’t forget what that feels like.”

David flashes back to his thirteenth birthday, standing on the basketball court his father had foolishly installed for him in the east wing of their home. He's holding his hands over his nose as it gushes blood on to the freshly waxed floors. His mother runs from the room shrieking at this sight of it while his father busies himself with 911. Alexis, on the other hand, stands there giving David a knowing smirk. Even through the blinding pain radiating through his face, he could remember knowing exactly why she was smirking: he was going to get the nose job he’d wanted after all. 

“No,” he agrees with Patrick's assessment. “You definitely don’t.”

“Oh, did you once run into someone on their phone who was even taller than you?”

His tone is sincere and his face unreadable, so it takes David a second to register that he’s being made fun of. Is this the fastest someone’s ever gone from meeting him to mocking him? It has to be. 

_Who does that,_ he thinks to himself. _You don’t do that to someone you’ve just met._

He should be offended. Why doesn’t he feel offended? Also, why isn’t the elevator moving?

He tries to remember what the elevator had been doing when the two of them were busy crashing into one another. He could have sworn the it had started to move, but it definitely didn’t descend long enough to take them all the way to the first floor. It must have stopped at some point, but they’d both been too distracted by their collision and subsequent shouting match to notice.

David reaches past L.L. Bean, as he has taken to calling him in the absence of an actual name, to the panel of buttons and presses the one marked ‘L’ for lobby. It’s already lit up a dull orange color, presumably from when the man first got on, but he presses it again anyway.

Nothing happens.

He presses it again, four more times in quick succession. The elevator doesn’t move, doesn’t make a sound.

“Umm.” David shoots a worried glance at L.L. Bean, the previous moment’s mocking and weird lack of offense quickly forgotten. “Why isn’t anything happening? Shouldn’t something be happening?” He’s trying not to sound panicked, but he can hear the shrillness creeping into his own voice. 

L.L. Bean’s brows draw together in confusion, and he tries pressing the button for the lobby himself. When that predictably does nothing, he tries the ‘Door Open’ button instead and gets the same result.

“Shit,” he mutters under his breath.

“What?” David asks, abandoning any attempt at hiding his panic. “Is it broken? Are we stuck? Please don’t say we’re stuck.”

“It’s fine. We may be a little stuck - ”

“What the hell does ‘a little stuck’ mean? We either are or we aren’t!”

“Okay, yes,” L.L. Bean huffs, “We’re stuck, but we’re going to call down to the lobby so they can fix it. It’s not, like, a permanent condition.”

“Oh god,” David groans, having barely a word L.L. Bean had said beyond ‘yes’. “I’m going to die here. I’m going to die in an elevator of a hotel that probably should have been condemned years ago, in fucking _Midtown_ of all places, with a total stranger. This elevator will be my tomb.”

He begins to pace back and forth, which only amounts to two steps in either direction given the size of the space. His mind begins to cycle through all the things he wishes he could have done before he dies here: Start his own line of knitwear under the Rick Owens brand. Attend the same Academy Awards after party as Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes and convince them to open up their marriage for a night. Dress Mariah Carey for the Grammys and then maybe she decides to bring him on tour with her to manage her social media presence.

Tell Alexis he loves her.

That’s the one he wants more than anything, and the one that would have been the easiest to accomplish when he actually had the chance. Now his last words to her will forever be ‘don’t get human trafficked’. It’s certainly practical advice for a girl like Alexis, but it’s not how he wants to leave things with her.

He looks over to find L.L. Bean staring at him like he has two heads. “What?”

“Nothing,” L.L. Bean says unconvincingly. “Nothing at all. That was a totally normal reaction.”

He keeps staring at him, and after a beat he adds, “Patrick.”

David rewinds and plays his pronouncement back in his head, but can’t think of anything he said that connects to that name. “Who?” he asks.

“Me,” the man replies, pointing at himself. “I’m Patrick. There, now you’re not going to die with a stranger.” He claps him on the shoulder in a way that David thinks he means good naturedly, but he can’t shake the feeling that he’s being made fun of again. “Doesn’t that make you feel better?”

“It does not.”

L.L. Be - _Patrick_ \- looks at him expectantly. “This is normally the part where you tell me your name,” he prompts. 

David wants to ask him how often he finds himself trapped in elevators with total strangers that he feels comfortable using the word ‘normally’, but he holds back. “Umm...David. David Rose.”

“Nice to meet you David Rose.” He offers his right hand to shake, and David takes it. It’s firm and warm and surprisingly strong without him purposefully doing the bullshit macho hand crush, and then, all too soon, it’s gone. “Now lets see about getting out of here.”


	4. A man without a country

Patrick finds the panel for the emergency telephone and pries it open. He says a quick prayer to any god that might be listening for the phone to work. Not because he’s worried about dying in here in a shitty Midtown elevator, but because he’s scared of the imminent panic attack that David’s going to have if they can’t reach anyone. He’s only known him for about four minutes, and two of those were spent shouting at each other and nursing head wounds, but he has the distinct impression that David is wound a _little_ tight.

He throws in a final good word to Vishnu just to hedge his bets and presses the receiver to his ear. 

Dead air.

No dial tone, no static, nothing.

He double checks the phone panel and finds that it contains a single button marked with the word ‘HELP’ in small black print. He presses the button without much hope, and is therefore completely unsurprised when nothing happens. He taps it a few more times for good measure and listens for someone to come on the line. He can feel David’s eye burning into the back of his head as he counts to thirty and finally places the phone back in its cradle.

He turns to face David and tries to maintain a good poker face. “Alright, so the phone isn’t working - ”

That’s as far as he gets before David cuts him off with a loud and strangled, “Fuck!”

“Okay David, I get it, I really do, but you need to stay calm.”

“When in the history of the universe has telling someone to calm down actually made them calm down?!”

The question brings Patrick up short, as he hadn’t expected an actual response from David aside from more cursing, possibly followed by some hyperventilating. 

“Never,” he concedes. “Fine, you’re allowed to freak out, but can you check your phone for a signal while you do?”

He pulls out his own phone, which he has no real faith will have any signal. While taxiing to his gate at JFK, he had turned on his cell to discover that not only was international roaming expensive, it was also spotty coverage at best. He wakes his screen to find that not only is his phone showing no bars, but the little 4G symbol on the status bar has a red ‘x’ running through it.

He glances over at David and can tell just from the look on his face that his phone isn’t going to be any more helpful. Sure enough, he turns the screen around and sees a status bar that mirrors his own. 

“Wait,” David says loudly enough to make Patrick jump. “I read somewhere that even if you don’t have any reception that your phone will still let you connect to 911.”

Patrick read the same article, but apparently he read a little further than David. “That only works if you’re showing on low bars. It allows your phone to connect to any network’s cell tower to place an emergency call, no matter who your provider is. But it doesn’t work if your phone doesn’t have enough signal to even reach the tower in the first place. Which is what this means.” He holds up his phone and points to the little red ‘x’. 

“What about WiFi? You’re staying here, right? Please tell me you connected as soon as you checked in.” David holds his hands together like a street urchin praying for his next meal.

“They don’t have WiFi in the rooms. There was a little sign at check in saying it was only offered in their business center and you’d have to pay twenty bucks to access it during your stay.”

“ _Business center_? What kind of hotel offers hourly rates _and_ a business center?!”

“Apparently the kind that doesn’t invest its WiFi fees back into hotel maintenance.”

“Was that supposed to be a joke?” David asks like he’s accusing Patrick of treason.

Patrick hesitates.

“...no?”

“Oh my God,” David groans. “So you’re telling me that there are three phones in here and we can’t use any of them to reach the outside world?”

“Yeah," he sighs. "That about sums it up.”

He braces for tears and screaming, but they don’t come. Instead David shoves his phone into his pocket, leans against the back wall of the elevator, closes his eyes, and allows his head to fall in defeat.

Patrick isn’t sure he likes this any better than tears and screaming. 

He considers what to do next, though his options are admittedly limited. He checks the ceiling and finds that it’s a solid wood panel, with no access hatch or tiles to lift. He has nothing to pry the door open with and judging by the fact that the display screen is still showing the number five even though he’d felt them briefly start to descend, he suspects they’re actually stuck between floors. He tries to come up with something comforting to say to David that will stop him from going completely catatonic, but the fact remains that there’s no way they’re getting out of this elevator on their own.

He looks over to where David is still leaning silently against the far wall and, in a moment he takes zero pride in, takes the opportunity to get a better look at him. 

Striking had been the first word that had come to mind when the doors opened and he’d first caught sight of him. It fit: the outfit, the hair, the eyebrows. Patrick had never felt drawn to eyebrows before. He’d never felt _anything_ about eyebrows before. 

Everything about David was carefully coordinated to make an immediate and lasting impression. As if almost breaking his nose hadn’t been memorable enough.

Now Patrick can see the finer details, like how neatly his nails are kept trimmed on fingers accented by heavy silver rings. Or how his lashes are long enough that Patrick can see them from three feet away even when David has his eyes closed. He realizes that the half pout half smirk made by David’s lips are not put on. Those are actually how they look, all the time. He should really stop staring at his lips. David’s face is a study in contrasts. Sharp but gentle. Masculine but soft. 

Striking had been Patrick’s first impression. But the more accurate one, he decides, is hot. David is hot.

This is not the first time Patrick has found another man attractive. If he’s being honest with himself, which is admittedly a new skill that he’s trying to master, he’s been finding guys hot his whole life. But he has only just recently gotten to the point where he can admit it out loud. Well, out loud in his head, to himself. Baby steps.

It started with actors in movies, the kind that even straight men are happy to point out are attractive, even if they feel the need to immediately clarify ‘no homo' lest someone get the impression that they want to touch a dick other than their own. There were the Ryans: Gosling, Reynolds, Phillippe. Then the Chrises: Pratt, Evans, Pine. All three of the Hemsworth brothers, even the oldest one who kind of looked like a thumb.

Then he'd moved on to men he interacted with in real life. The guy at his gym who always wore a Blue Jays shirt, the weekend barback at the Wobbly Elm, Mutt - though he would probably take that one to his grave before admitting he was attracted to anyone who shared DNA with Roland Schitt.

So it isn’t new territory for him to admit that David is hot. A tall drink of water, his mother might say. What is new is the train of thought that immediately follows that admission.

_I’ve never kissed anyone taller than me._

_I’ve never kissed a guy._

_I wonder what it would be like to kiss him._

_Would he bend down or would I need to stand on my toes?_

_Would we meet in the middle?_

_Would he mind if I touched his hair when we kissed? He looks like he would mind._

_I really want to touch his hair._

_I really want to kiss him._

So much for baby steps.

These are not normal things to be thinking about a guy he just met. These are the kinds of thoughts that a horny teenager has when he discovers how to navigate around the parental controls his parents placed on the internet browser.

He’s had longer conversations with bank tellers than he’s had so far with David. If he were straight - _woah, okay, so that’s an ‘if’ statement now_ \- and he was thinking about a woman like that after only knowing her for five minutes, he’d be a creep. Except maybe that is what straight guys do. There’s a jarring thought: he doesn’t know what a gay or straight man would do in this scenario. He has no guidelines to follow, a man without a country.

All he’s got is a hot guy in an elevator, and no idea what to do with him. 

The length of time David has gone without moving or speaking is starting to make him uneasy. If there were two things he had already begun to associate with the man he was now stuck with, they were movement and volume. He makes a loud show of clearing his throat in hopes of getting David’s attention. When that doesn’t work, he takes a step forward and places a tentative hand on David’s arm.

David jolts up and recoils from the touch, and Patrick holds up his hands. “Sorry,” he says. “Wasn’t trying to scare you, you were just kind of...well, you were - ”

“Contemplating our impending demise?”

Patrick realizes that David isn’t just being dramatic for the sake of it; he actually thinks they’re in real danger here.

“David, you know we’re not actually going to be stuck here forever right? Eventually someone’s going to notice the elevator isn’t working and they’ll send somebody to fix it.”

“On New Year’s Eve?” David asks incredulously. “Unlikely. And tomorrow’s an actual holiday, that’s even worse.”

“Come on, the world doesn’t just come to a stop on New Year’s Day. You honestly think that if some tourists get stuck in the elevator at the Empire State Building on Thanksgiving they’d just make them ride it out until the weekend?”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, this is not the Empire State Building, okay? This place barely meets the legal definition of a hotel, and given the fact that they couldn’t be bothered to keep a functioning emergency phone running in here, it’s not one that I have an overwhelming amount of faith in at the moment.”

Patrick knows he has a point, but he also thinks it will do more harm than good to admit it. He tries again.

“Look, all it’ll take is one or two guests complaining before they send someone to check on it. And once they know we’re in here, they’ll _have_ to do something about it.” He thinks back to the dead fly falling out of his bath towel and questions the amount of faith that statement just placed in the hotel’s management. He pushes it aside and redirects himself back to talking David off his ledge.

“Anyone who’s ridden this thing even one time knows how slow it is,” David argues. “If it takes too long to come, most people are going to take the stairs before they bother calling management.”

Patrick thinks for a moment before the answer he was looking for dawns on him. He claps his hands together victoriously. “If that’s true then we’ll be out of here by check out time tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“That’s when people are going to have their bags with them. Think about it, this place has what, twenty-five floors? No one’s going to take all those flights of stairs with three pieces of luggage unless they have no other choice. Which means we’re only,” he glances down at his watch, “thirteen and a half hours away from being rescued.”


	5. Pop a squat

David nervously twirls the silver ring he keeps on his index finger while he considers what Patrick’s just said. There’s logic in it, he knows that. But he also knows that New York is filled with slumlords and cheap skates, and a good number of them dabble in the hospitality industry. 

Then he thinks about the party going on a floor and half above them, and it actually gives him a small amount of hope. Everyone up there is either currently thoroughly fucked up or at least trying very hard to be, and come morning they will have to leave that suite like cockroaches scurrying from the sun when someone reveals their nest. An army of hungover socialites will descend upon the elevator doors and have management on their phones long before they ever willingly take the stairs.

The thought brings him some relief, but with it comes embarrassment.

He’s become conscious of just how nicely Patrick is handling his minor dip into the deep end of hysteria. His tone has been calm and steady, never once venturing into the territory of condescending. He’s still not entirely convinced that this elevator won’t be his final resting place, but he can probably make it thirteen and half hours if it gives Patrick a chance to prove his theory.

He takes a steadying breath and relaxes his arms from their tightly folded position. “You may have a point,” he says. “And I may have overreacted ever so slightly to our current situation.”

Patrick looks relieved by David’s admission. “It’s alright,” he says. “Panic does weird stuff to peoples’ minds. If you stuck me a room full of snakes and promised me they were all completely harmless I would still probably be convinced I was about to die horribly.”

“Well that is a very lovely thing to say.” David claps his hands with each word. “I also think it’s a total lie, but I think it’s supposed to make me feel better, so thank you.”

Patrick ducks his head down for a second and when he looks back up he’s smiling. David feels his stomach twist a little and tries unsuccessfully to ignore it.

“We’ll keep checking our phones every once in a while,” Patrick tells him. “Like I said, we only need the tiniest bit of signal to get through to 911.”

  
  


**

  
  


Patrick looks at his screen for the tenth time in as many minutes. His shoulders slump, which David takes as a sign that full bars of service haven’t miraculously returned to his phone.

“Big fat nothing,” Patrick admits in defeat. He shuts down his cell, presumably to conserve battery, though David doesn’t see much point in saving power since there’s no chance of them ever getting a signal, and zips it into the front pocket of his backpack. He turns to David and smiles apologetically. “Guess we may as well settle in.”

He gestures to the floor, a six foot by seven rectangle of brown threadbare, carpet. David stares down at it and immediately surmises that this carpet definitely didn’t start out its existence as any shade of brown, and that no amount of carpet cleaner or high powered steam cleaning will ever restore it anything other than a slightly lighter shade of brown.

“Settle in?” David asks like Patrick’s suddenly speaking in tongues.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Sit down? Pop a squat?”

David recoils at the suggestion. “I don’t pop squats. And I can’t sit down.”

“You _can’t_? Why? Is your ass broken?”

“My ass is just fine, thank you very much.” He swears he sees Patrick glance down at his ass for the briefest of seconds, but it happens too fast for him to be sure. “Maybe can’t was the wrong word. I _won’t_ sit down.”

“You won’t,” Patrick repeats flatly. “I think my original question of ‘why’ still stands.”

David crosses his arms defensively over his chest. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.” 

He knows he shouldn’t have to justify himself to anyone, let alone a grown man who wears Wranglers, and yet he finds himself opening his mouth and doing exactly that.

“It’s just that these are Versace,” he gestures at his favorite pair of artfully distressed black jeans, “and this carpet is filthy and probably older than I am.”

“And how old would that be?”

David glares daggers at him. “I will not dignify that with a response.”

“Okay David, do whatever you want,” Patrick replies, done arguing. He unties that flannel shirt from his waist and drops it on the ground like a makeshift picnic blanket. He sits down on it, cross legged, and stares up at David. “But if we end up stuck in here overnight, you’re going to have to learn how to sleep standing up.”

He unzips his bag and pulls out a paperback book before looking back up at David and adding, "Like a horse."

**

David spends the next fifteen minutes attempting to assume a comfortable stance against the wall, but the hand rail that encircles the lift is at an awkward height. Too high for him to sit on, too low to prop up his elbow. He feels Patrick eyes on him and it only steels his determination to stay upright. They’ve known each other for less than an hour and yet David already feels oddly invested in not losing face in front of a virtual stranger. 

Of course now that he’s declared he won’t sit down, it’s all he can think about doing. Whereas minutes before he had felt completely fine, now he can feel a slight strain in his calves, and a dull ache in his feet. He realizes that it’s been almost two hours since he left his apartment for the evening, which included two subway rides, a transfer, a stop into Au Bon Pain for a small coffee, and finally a rather damp and chilly three block walk to the hotel that he’d stupidly resisted jumping into a cab for instead. 

Add the sight of his two exes performing drunken foreplay in the middle of a packed hotel room, and his body is telling him, quite insistently, that it's time to take a load off. He shifts his weight from one leg to the other every few minutes in a painfully casual way that he hopes will escape Patrick’s notice. He must have underestimated Patrick’s powers of observation though, as the fifth or sixth time he goes to reposition himself he hears him sigh. 

“Okay, we’re not doing this all night,” Patrick says, unzipping his jacket and tossing it down next to his shirt. David stares down at it, wondering how such a simple gesture could make him feel like such a prick.

“You don’t have to do that,” he tells Patrick. 

“Something tells me that if you aren’t okay with your jeans touching the ground, then your coat is also probably a no-go.”

He’s not wrong, but David still can’t bring himself to use Patrick’s jacket like the equivalent of a toilet seat cover in a public restroom.

“Really, I’m fine standing up,” he insists.

“Is that why you keep leaning from foot to foot and making little whining noises under your breath?”

David straightens up indignantly. “I was _not_ making whining noises.”

“Oh, sorry. I must have mistaken them for the otherwise dead silence in here, my bad.” He reaches over to grab his jacket back when David waves his hand for him to stop.

“Okay, fine. But only because the only other thing that might help is taking off my shoes and - ”

“No, wait, let me guess: you don’t want your socks touching the carpet either?”

David shoots him a glare and says, “Sock feet in a public place is incorrect.”

“Ah yes, that old chestnut,” Patrick deadpans and waves a hand at his jacket as though to say ‘help yourself’. 

David gives in and drops down on the jacket. He immediately feels the tension mercifully drain out of his legs. 

“Now you can’t tell me that doesn’t feel better,” Patrick says with a grin. 

“Umm, it doesn’t _not_ feel better.” 

Patrick stares at him for a moment before letting out a small laugh and shaking his head at David’s obstinance. David can feel himself start to blush and bows his head down under the guise of checking his phone to hide it. If he wasn’t roughly ninety-eight percent sure that Patrick was straight, he might think he was flirting with him.

They pass the next half hour in relative silence. David busies himself by scrolling through his photos and purging any and all appearances of ‘the Doms’, as Alexis insists on calling them. Patrick flips through the pages of a New York City guidebook, though he doesn’t appear to be reading any of them very closely. Eventually he closes the book and drops it by his side, and David sees him look over from the corner of his eye.

“Can I ask you a question?” Patrick asks a little hesitantly.

“Other than that one?”

“Clever.”

“I try.” He flips his relatively useless phone from one hand to the other and he knows Patrick is waiting for a real response. “Okay, yes, what is it?”

“I was just curious, uh, why someone like...well," he gestures vaguely at David’s outfit, as if that alone could be used to sum up David as a person, "would come to a New Year’s Eve Party at a crappy no star hotel in Midtown Manhattan?” 

David decides it's not an unfair question. “You mean what’s a nice girl like me doing in a place like this?” he asks with what he hopes is a coy smirk.

Patrick blushes a little at David’s retort, the tips of his ears going pink. David finds himself staring at the ears, noticing how the flush of color actually trails down his neck. He wonders if it goes all the way down to Patrick’s chest and he feels his mouth go a little dry and - _okay, stop it,_ he tells himself. _Stop undressing the straight boy with your eyes_.

“Sure, I guess,” Patrick replies.

_God, what an innocent little button_. 

“Sorry,” David says, surprised to hear himself apologizing. “I meant that about fifty percent less catty than it sounded.” 

Patrick gives a little shake of his head. “It’s fine.”

David looks around the elevator as though he isn’t already familiar with every inch of it. The fluorescent lights flicker overhead, and he feels the first twinge of a headache above his right ear. “No, I get what you mean. This is definitely _not_ my typical scene.”

“Then why - ”

“It wasn’t my idea,” he cuts him off. “Some…” he hesitates to use the word ‘friends’, “acquaintances of mine decided to throw a kind of theme party here for New Year’s Eve.”

“And what exactly was the theme?”

“Umm.” He gives his phone another flip and misses his left hand entirely, dropping to the floor with a dull thud. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

“Try me.”

“Well...uh, I believe the exact phrase that was used in the invite was ‘Slummin’ It’.” He cringes as he says it, hating that Patrick had to ask, and hating that his idiotic friends had picked the name in the first place.

There’s a long beat of silence and David can’t bring himself to actually look at Patrick. 

“Wow,” he finally says. 

“Yeah.”

“Like... _wow_.”

“Yes, I know, I know, I know.” David flaps his hands in the air like doing so will shake off his association to the hosts. “It wasn’t my idea.”

“No, but it was your friends’ idea,” Patrick replies, as though the distinction is completely arbitrary.

“I didn’t say friends,” David is quick to point out. “I said acquaintances. And you know, even that might be too strong a word. Contemporaries?”

Patrick frowns at him, clearly not buying it. “Your ‘contemporaries’ host a poverty themed New Year’s Eve party and you couldn’t turn down the invite?”

David groans and buries his face in his hands. He hadn’t even wanted to come to this thing in the first place and now he has to justify his attendance to a very cute and very judgmental tourist who probably lives in a place where the biggest party of the year involves a barn raising. 

“Actually I _did_ turn down the invite,” he says, speaking into his palms. “I wasn’t planning on coming until about three hours ago.”

“What changed your mind?” he hears Patrick ask. 

He drops his hands and looks over at Patrick. He expects him to still look disgusted by the fact that his friends thought it would be hilarious to host a party in a shitty hotel that people without trust funds have to stay at out of necessity. Instead he is looking at him with open curiosity, devoid of judgement.

“It’s a long story,” David says.

Patrick glances around the elevator and shrugs. “Does it look like I have anywhere else to be?”

David had hoped he would just let him dodge the question and return to the awkward yet peaceful silence they’d been enjoying before, but Patrick is weirdly persistent and David is weirdly incapable of telling him to fuck off.

“It’s stupid,” David insists. 

Patrick stares at him, patiently waiting for him to elaborate.

“Ugh, fine! I let my sister talk me into coming. She pointed out that after my latest break up I had maybe kind of turned into a bit of a hermit.”

“Oh,” Patrick says in an odd tone that David can’t quite place. ”I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be, she actually said it _way_ meaner than that. At one point I think she compared me to a hobbit hiding underground, which doesn’t even make sense because I live on the twelfth floor of my building - ”

“No, I meant the break up. I’m sorry to hear that you’re going through a break up.”

“Oh,” David stumbles. “Um...thank you. I guess. It’s really fine. I’m fine with it, and they’re fine with it - of course they are, it was their idea - and we’re all, uh, I mean, everyone is…”

“Fine?” Patrick offers gently. 

David lets out a small laugh without very little humor behind it. “Exactly.”

“So was your sister right? About you being a hermit?”

“Well she certainly thought so,” he replies bitterly. “Though she may have presented some compelling evidence.”

“Such as?”

“Um, well for starters I hadn’t gone to a single place outside of my apartment, my work, and my favorite bodega in almost three weeks.”

“Ah, I see," Patrick nods. "I’m going to take a stab in the dark here and say that you’re normally a much more social creature?”

“I definitely don’t go out like I did in my twenties,” David replies. “But yeah, much as I hate to give my sister any sort of credit, that is sort of hermit-esque behavior for me.”

“Well I promise to never tell her you said that,” Patrick assures him like he’s making a solemn vow.

David knows it’s a joke. He knows there’s zero chance of Patrick ever running into Alexis, let alone having a conversation with her. As a matter of fact, once they get out of this elevator, there’s no reason the two of them will ever see each other again. Why would they? Patrick is clearly a tourist, Canadian judging by his accent, which is ironically the very accent David has made a conscious effort to rid himself of over the years. And even if he did live in New York, it’s pretty clear that he and David lead _very_ different lives. He’s nice enough, really nice actually, but probably isn’t looking to make friends with a queer gallery owner from the West Village.

“Thank you,” he says, realizing how long it’s been since Patrick spoke. “She doesn’t need the ego boost.”

“So she thought coming to the party would be a good excuse for you to get out?”

“Umm, yes and no.”

“Sorry?”

“I mean, yes, she wanted me to go out to a party, just maybe not _this_ one in particular.” David runs a hand through his hair and curses Alexis for just how right she was about coming here.

“Did she have the same moral objections to the theme as I did?” Patrick asks with just the smallest hint of righteous indignation. 

“Oh god no,” David scoffs. “Alexis doesn’t have moral objections. She literally doesn’t know the meaning of the words.”

“Well then why - ”

“Because,” David stops him, knowing what his question is going to be. “My exes are at the party. They’re upstairs right now, as a matter of fact.”

“Wait, _exes_?” Patrick leans forward as though maybe he had just misheard David. “As in more than one?”

“Yup,” David admits, feeling even dumber now that he has to explain his decision to come here out loud. “My sister was right. I mean, she’s almost thirty, it was bound to happen eventually.”

“You willingly came to a party knowing that two of your exes would be there?”

“Believe me, I know. Hindsight is twenty-twenty.”

“I don’t know, I’m pretty sure foresight should have caught that one.”

_Everyone’s a critic_ , David thinks to himself. _Even people who buy their jeans from Costco._

“So I guess it’s safe to assume it didn’t go well then?” Patrick asks.

“What makes you say that?”

‘Well you were going down when you got in the elevator. Unless leaving a New Year’s Eve party at 9 PM is a weird New Yorker tradition I’ve never heard of, I’m pretty sure I caught you in the middle of fleeing.”

David finds it really hard to concentrate on what Patrick’s saying as he keeps getting caught up on phrases like ‘going down’ and ‘I caught you’. Totally innocent in context, but it turns out his brain absolutely loves removing context and letting his imagination run amok.

He can’t help it, in the same way he can’t help staring at Patrick neck. There’s really nothing remarkable about it. David doesn’t have a neck kink. He doesn’t lust after them the way other people do over asses or abs or legs. And yet all David can think of when he sees it is burying his face into the soft corner where it meets his shoulder and breathing in deeply. He has a feeling he’d smell clean and woodsy, like the Irish Spring soap Adelina would buy for him before he started spending more on personal care products per month than the average car payment.

He feels a practically pubescent urge to mark his neck with a hickey. He wants to take him to a movie theater or get him into the backseat of his car and make out like a couple of horny teenagers. He wants to latch on to that neck, to kiss and bite and suck until there’s a mark that will stay there long after they’ve parted ways. A mark that would remind Patrick every time he looked into the mirror how much David wanted him.

He clenches his fists hard enough to hurt his palms and hopes that Patrick doesn’t notice. These are not the kind of thoughts a thirty-three year old man should be having about a guy he’s just met. Not unless he’d met him in a bathhouse. 

_You’re rebounding_ , he tells himself. _You’re lonely and you’re hurting and you’re trapped in an elevator with a cute guy and you’re thinking with your dick and you just need to STOP._

He relaxes his hands and smooths them over his denim clad legs. “Who died and made you Sherlock Holmes?” he asks, and it comes out too loud and too harsh. He makes an effort to look unaffected when really he’s just trying to avoid looking Patrick in the eye.

David steals a glance when he doesn’t respond and finds Patrick staring at him through narrowed eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing, I’m just trying to figure out if you meant that to come out fifty percent less catty than it did.” It’s a joke, a little callback to before, but there’s a nervous quality in Patrick’s voice and David can tell he’s treading lightly. 

“Nope,” David replies. “Full cattiness intended.”

Patrick rubs a weary hand along the back of his neck and David forces himself to look literally anywhere else. “Sorry,” he hears Patrick say. “We, uh, we don’t have to keep talking about this.”

David would love nothing more than to stop talking about this, but he also wasn’t trying to make Patrick feel guilty for asking about it in the first place. He just needs the conversation to end. He needs the voice in his head, the one thinking about necks and teeth and the backseats of cars, to shut the fuck up.

He needs to stop reading into everything Patrick says. He needs to stop telling himself that every time he makes fun of him he’s actually flirting. He needs to stop feeling hopeful about the fact that Patrick’s not wearing a wedding ring, as if he’s got better odds with a single straight guy than a married one.

“It’s okay,” David tells him. “It was just...I don’t know. An error in judgement.”

  
  
“What, coming here tonight?”

“No, dating them in the first place.”

Patrick stares at him, either unwilling or unable to come up with a response to that. David has to look away. There’s pity in his eyes, and there are few things David hates more than the feeling of being pitied. 

He closes his eyes and waits for his mind to be quiet.


	6. Cowards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered splitting it up into two, or maybe doing two Patrick POVs in a row, but that would fuck up the flow I've got going, so screw it. To quote possibly my favorite comment I've ever received: things are heating up, and by heating up I mean getting emotionally vulnerable (thanks seadeepy).

He should have dropped the conversation as soon as David mentioned he was going through a break up. Patrick knows better than anyone how goddamn annoying it can be to have someone pry for details about a topic you’d rather not think about ever again. But then he got David talking to him and he didn’t want him to stop. 

They’ve lapsed into an almost hour long silence. _An hour_. The length of an episode of Game of Thrones has somehow stretched itself into an eternity. Patrick has spent it reading his guidebook cover to cover, turning on his phone and playing a few rounds of tetris, and trying to look at David as much as he can manage without being noticed. 

The worst part about the silence between them isn’t that it’s awkward; it’s that it’s lonely. He’s stuck in an elevator with a man that he is more viscerally attracted to than anyone he’s ever met before, he’s finally being honest with himself about his level of attraction to that man, and yet can’t bring himself to just open his mouth and speak.

Every few minutes he comes up with a new idea for how to start a conversation only to immediately talk himself out of it. None of them feel right, and they all devolve into things he really wants to say but _really_ shouldn’t. 

Such as:

_“Hey, sorry I brought up your weeks long depressive episode and your failed attempt to recover from it, do you want to make out for a while?”_

or,

_“I know I embarrassed you and kind of rubbed it in that multiple people recently broke up with you, but if it helps, I’m also wondering what you look like naked.”_

or,

“ _So I noticed you using some pretty vague pronouns to refer to your exes and I don’t want to make any assumptions, but is there any chance you’re into closeted Canadian tourists who get turned on watching Captain American?”_

Or finally, and by far the most pathetic,

_“I might still be in the closet, but I hear that’s the best place to play Seven Minutes in Heaven.”_

That one makes him want to slam his head into the metal doors of the elevator, repeatedly.

The problem, he realizes, is that even if he apologizes the scales will still feel unbalanced. He knows he embarrassed David. Not like when he’d joked about his ass being broken (which he absolutely did glance at as soon as he’d said it) or when he’d poked fun at the relative hardness of his forehead. No, this was real, hour long silent treatment level of embarrassment. 

He doesn't just need to make an apology. He needs to balance the scales.

“I slept with a teddy bear until I was seventeen,” he announces, seemingly out of nowhere.

David’s body jolts and his eyes fly open.

“What?” he asks, like he suspects hearing Patrick speak might have been a figment of his imagination.

“His name was Snug. Snug the bear. He’s still at my parents’ house. They didn’t think it was a good idea to take him to university with me. Probably a good call.”

David’s eyes go wide. “Umm, I don’t…”

“When I was in grade seven, I had to go in front of the class and give an oral presentation on the importance of fur trading to early settlers, and I got an erection right in the middle of my speech. I was wearing basketball shorts, couldn’t have hidden it if I tried.”

“You got an - ”

“An erection. Yep, big ol’ - well not _big_ , I was twelve years old - but, yeah. In front of my teacher and all my classmates.”

David still looks confused, but a smile has started to creep across his face which is all the encouragement Patrick needs to continue.

“I tell people I’m five foot nine, but I’m not. I’m barely five eight on a good day, I just wear shoes with really thick soles.”

“Oh my god,” David laughs. “That's enough, really.”

“One time, I wrote a song - ”

David frantically waves his hands in Patrick’s face to get him to shut up. “Okay, no, I’m going to stop you right there. I can’t. There is nothing cringier than live musical performances by untrained musicians. Except for maybe improv.”

“Who says I’m untrained?” asks Patrick. “Maybe I’ve got the voice of an angel.” He can already feel the awkward weight lifting off his chest. He’s allowed to talk to David again. More importantly, he’s allowed to tease him.

“Oh is that what your mother told you?” David shoots back, the smile now breaking wide.

“She’s my biggest fan.”

“Oof, I’ll leave it up to your therapist to unpack that one.” He squints at Patrick, who has to force himself to meet his gaze. “Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because I made you talk about some really embarrassing shit that you _clearly_ didn’t want to talk about. It was a joke until all of a sudden it wasn’t, and that’s my fault. So I figured I owed you some embarrassing shit of my own to balance things out.”

David looks at him the way a zoologist might look at a wolf that’s learned to walk upright: confused, fascinated, and doubtful that what he’s seeing is even real. 

“ _Where did you come from_?” David asks him.

“Ontario.”

**

Over the next half hour they fall in and out of conversation, the silences now free of any tension other than the one sided sexual variety that Patrick is positive is coming off of him in waves. At one point David reaches over to grab Patrick’s guidebook of the floor and the back of his hand brushes against Patrick’s leg and he has to start reciting the Jays’ 2015 starting lineup just to stop himself from getting a semi. 

_Lock it up man, lock it up._

He hears David’s stomach make a low, rumbling growl. He checks his watch to find that it’s just past eleven, and he suspects David didn't bother to eat dinner before coming to the hotel.

“You hungry?” he asks.

David waves him off. “I’m fine.”

“You sure? Because I’ve got some snacks in my bag, and I heard your stomach growl.”

David’s looks at him with a pinched expression. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Well it was either your stomach or a dying cat, and I don’t see any cats in here.”

David doesn’t dignify that with a response, but Patrick does see his eyes flicker to his backpack.

“What kind of snacks?”

Patrick shakes his head with a laugh, but reaches over to unzip his bag anyway. “Your options are an apple, some trail mix, a granola bar, or a bag of pretzels that I grabbed off the plane.” He pulls out each item as he lists them and lays them out on the floor. “Oh, and a bottle of water. We’d have to share. I mean, if you want. We don’t have to - you could just take the water, I’m not thirsty.”

“No, it’s fine,” David tells him. “You look like you have a clean mouth.”

“I’m sorry, a clean mouth?”

“Yeah, some people have nice, clean mouths and some people have sloppy mouths.”

“Uh, right.” Patrick actually has no idea what he’s talking about, but now he can’t stop staring at David’s mouth and he swears he can see David looking at his. 

_Nope, do not go down that road._

_But he’s looking too._

_No he’s not, you don’t know that. And stop staring._

  
David studies his snack options carefully like he’s making a deeply important decision. He settles on the trail mix, and Patrick takes the apple. 

“For the record,” Patrick says between bites, “I think you coming here was pretty brave.”

David digs around the bag looking for the M&Ms, and lets out a little huff. “That's definitely a word for stupid I’ve never heard of before.”

“I mean it,” Patrick insists. “You faced your fears. You knew it was going to suck, and you did it anyway.”

“Yeah, and then I saw my fears making out with each other and I immediately fled the room.”

It takes a moment for David's words to click into place, and he feels a deep pang of sympathy once they do. “Wait, hold on, back up. They were - ”

“Making out with each other. Aggressively. Honestly there might have been more going on there but I couldn’t actually see their hands, so who knows?”

Patrick lets out a low whistle. “Yikes.”

“Agreed, hence the fleeing like a coward.”

“You're not a coward.”

David lets out a dry little laugh and smooths a finger over one of his brows. Patrick doesn’t understand why, as there isn’t a hair out of place anywhere on his body.

\- _anywhere you can see_ \- 

\- _shut it_ \- 

“Well it certainly didn’t feel brave,” David says in a quiet voice.

“No, trust me, I know what real cowardice looks like, and that ain’t it.”

“Oh? You’ve seen worse?”

“I’ve _done_ worse.”

“You’ll excuse me for finding that rather hard to believe.”

“Oh yeah? How about lying to my family and spending Christmas alone for the first time in my entire life rather than going home and seeing my ex-fiancée?”

David’s brows shoot up in astonishment and for a moment it appears that Patrick’s actually left him speechless. “Huh,” he eventually gets out. “That is, um...that’s pretty...”

“Pathetic?”

“I was going to say ‘rough’ but sure, your call.” He pulls his knees up to his chest and rests his chin on them. “When you said Christmas, did you mean this year?”

“Six days ago, yeah.” It’s worse when David puts it into context like that. It’s more embarrassing to tell a story about choosing to hide from your family when you’re still in the middle of actively hiding from your family. “Thanksgiving too, but that was a while back. Our’s is in - ”

“October, I know.”

David must have seen the surprise on Patrick’s face because he clarifies, “I’m Canadian too.”

“Seriously?” Patrick had assumed he was from New York, though now he thinks that was a pretty stupid assumption to make about a city famous for being made up of immigrants and transplants from other parts of the country. “I never would have guessed.”

“Born and raised in Toronto. They kicked me out for my general lack of politeness, but I got to keep the passport.”

Patrick laughs at the idea of a nationwide purge of anyone who doesn’t apologize well enough. He could understand why David might not make the cut.

“Do you ever go back to visit?”

“Yeah, a couple times a year. My family keeps an apartment downtown and a house in Bridal Path.”

If Patrick had been taking a drink at that moment he probably would have choked. “ _Bridal Path?_ Who’d your parents kill to afford a house there?”

“No one,” David says. “My dad used to own a pretty successful chain of video stores. He managed to sell it before the internet became a thing and the industry went tits up. And my mother is an actress. Just daytime soaps, but the work was steady until she retired. Chalk the rest up to hiring a decent financial advisor.”

David’s mention of video stores triggers something in Patrick’s memory, and he starts connecting dots.

“David Rose...your dad owned Rose Video, didn’t he?”

“Congratulations. I’ve lived in this city for over a decade and you’re the first person I’ve ever met to make the connection to my name.”

“Holy shit,” Patrick says, still stunned by just how small the world really is. “I worked for Rose Video when I was in high school.”

“Seriously?”

“Branch seven eighty-five. Had to drive forty minutes into Thunder Bay just to get there.”

“Wonders never cease.”

“So wait, does that mean your mom is - ”

“Moira Rose.”

“Wow. My grandma used to watch Sunrise Bay every afternoon. She’s going to flip when I tell her.”

“Yeah, my mom is really big with the over-seventy crowd.” The way he says it makes Patrick suspect that the over-seventy crowd wasn’t necessarily Moira Rose’s desired demographic, but the Monday through Friday mid-afternoon audience is what it is. “So are we going to run through my whole family tree, or are you going to tell me what’s so scary about this fiancée of yours?”

“Ex-fiancée,” Patrick is quick to correct him. _What, like he might actually make a move just because he knows you're single? Get a grip._

He doesn’t know where to start. Does he go back to when he was thirteen, and she asked him to their Sadie Hawkins dance (because if it had been boy’s choice he probably wouldn’t have asked anyone)? Or to their first kiss a year later, behind the baseball dugout after practice, short and chaste and entirely underwhelming? Should he get into the more graphic stuff, like how the first time they had sex at her parent’s cabin the summer before grade twelve, he couldn’t actually finish? How he’d blamed it on nerves and the condom and anything else he could think of other than the one possibility he wouldn’t let himself think about at all? How he’d learned to get really good at giving oral, and even better at receiving it since he could just close his eyes and imagine... _well_. Maybe he’d keep that part to himself.

He decides to start small. “Rachel,” he says. “Her name is Rachel, and she was my first girlfriend.”

**

He doesn’t tell him everything, in the end. He leaves out the stuff about condoms and oral and how many times she’d look at him over the years and asked if everything was alright and how many times he’d lied to her and said yes. 

But he told him a lot. More than he’d planned to really. Turns out it’s a lot easier to talk about breaking up with your fiancée with someone who doesn’t know her than it is with a bunch of people who still invite her around for Sunday dinner.

“So you were together for more almost fifteen years?” David asks.

“On and off, but yeah, around that.”

“When was the ‘off’?”

“Uh, I guess the first time was right before we left for university. It was her idea actually. We were going to be on opposite ends of the country and she thought we owed it to ourselves to see what else was out there.”

“In my experience that tends to be code for ‘I want to sleep with other people’.”

Patrick can’t help but laugh. It’s a fair point.

“Sort of. I think it was more to do with the fact that we came from such a small town. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life wondering if we were together because we were really right for each other, or if it was just because we didn't have many other options.”

“How small are we talking here?”

“Well, my graduating class had about forty people in it, so…”

“ _Forty_?” David clearly underestimated what Patrick’s idea of a small town was.”That wouldn’t even fill up a subway car.”

“Tell me about it. And three of them were triplets, which didn’t really make a difference to me, but you really had to feel bad that their dating pool was even smaller than everyone else's by two.”

“No shit. So you went off to the big city to sow your wild oats then?

“If by ‘big city’ you mean Saskatoon, and by ‘sow your wild oats’ you mean have three painfully awkward one night stands over the course of four years then yeah, you go it.” He snaps his mouth shut, cursing himself for being a little too honest for his own liking.

All he can think about is crawling into David’s lap and doing - well, he hasn’t figured that part out yet - but definitely something fun, and he’s just told the owner of said lap that his sexual experiences in college could be summed up rather simply as brief and unsatisfying. Unless he explains exactly why those encounters had been so bad, an option that’s beginning to look more and more tempting by the minute, then he can see David reaching the conclusion that the common denominator in all of those disappointing encounters was Patrick.

If David notices the pained expression on Patrick’s face, he’s politely choosing to ignore it. Or maybe he’s just too busy laughing at the idea of Saskatoon being considered a bustling metropolis. At one point he’s laughing so hard that he closes his eyes and pitches forward, his hand catching on Patrick’s ankle for balance. 

It stays there for four whole seconds - Patrick counts each and every one of them - and then gives him a small squeeze before pulling away. Patrick feels like his heart has jumped into his throat.

David, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to realize what he’s done, or the effect it's had on Patrick. “Sorry,” he says, wiping away a small tear from the corner of his eye as his giggles subside. “It’s just that you and I had _very_ different college experiences.”

“Oh? What’s the opposite of majoring in business in the prairies with the sex life of a priest?”

“Umm...going to NYU and double majoring in art history and drunken hook-ups?”

Patrick feels a little flare of jealousy ignite in his stomach. Not for the kind of life David had gotten to lead, but for all the people who’d gotten to hook up with him. Maybe if he’d gone to school in New York - 

_You still wouldn’t have slept with him_. 

Patrick is just about done with the voice in his head and its uncanny ability of turning up anytime he allows his imagination to wander.

_I could have,_ he argues back, even though he knows he’s only arguing with himself.

_Could have, but wouldn’t have. There were plenty of gay guys in Saskatchewan, you didn’t sleep with any of them either._

_Yeah, but none of them looked like_ **_that_** _._

“So you got back together once you graduated?” David asks.

“More like we got back together anytime we went home. It was always easy to just...fall back into things.”

That’s a lie though, one that Patrick has just gotten used to telling himself. It’s not that it was easy to get back together, it’s that it was too damn hard to say no to Rachel. 

“That’s why you didn’t go back for Christmas.” Any trace of laughter is now gone from David’s voice. “You didn’t trust yourself not to do what you always did.”

Patrick gives him a small smile. “Told you I was a coward.”

“That’s not being a coward,” David tells him. “That’s just...self-preservation.” 

“Thank you David. That a very generous interpretation.”

“Well lucky for you, I am a _very_ generous person.”

Patrick and David look at each other at the same moment. It would be an awkward kind of thing if they were two strangers waiting on a train platform or in line at the bank. They might make that strange smile that people only ever seem to make when they’re passing somebody in the hallway at work that they kind of recognize, but don’t know by name. Or maybe they would immediately drop their gazes to the floor, having been made deeply uncomfortable by a moment of human connection with a total stranger. 

But David and Patrick aren’t strangers. Almost three hours trapped in an elevator admitting their greatest acts of cowardice is too much time to qualify as strangers anymore. They look each other in the eye the way strangers don’t, and there is silence, and Patrick wishes, however irrationally, that they could stay in this elevator forever.

It’s David who breaks the silence, because one of them has to. “Can I ask you something?”

“Isn’t that my line?” Patrick jokes.

“I’m serious. I have a potentially awkward question and if you don’t want to answer it you can just tell me to fuck off and I totally will.”

“Where would you even fuck off to in here, the corner?”

David levels him with a stern glare. “Patrick.”

“Yeah, alright. Go ahead and ask.” 

“Out of all the times you and Rachel broke up, what made the last time different? Like, different enough that you’re hiding out in a foreign country to avoid potentially running into her?”

Patrick should have expected this question. Most people who end long term relationships tend to follow a number of common paths in the immediate aftermath. There’s the ‘drink and party too much because you think this is what single people should do’ route. There’s the ‘download Tinder and swipe right on way too many people because you’re not getting any younger and don’t think you have the time to be picky anymore’ route. Or if you're lucky there's always the slightly healthier ‘go to the gym and pick back up all the hobbies you abandoned in the course of your relationship’ route.

In Patrick’s case, he had taken the road less traveled. The road that involved packing all of his belongings into a car, moving to a town he had never even been to (but had found after an afternoon spent browsing the internet and a single phone interview), and limiting contact with his otherwise incredibly loving and close knit family in order to avoid running into his ex. It was, in short, a weird ass road.

He shifts himself over so that he is sitting beside David. He thought it would be easier to answer if he didn’t have face him when he did it. What he underestimated was how distracting being only a few inches closer to him would be. Their splayed out legs are almost touching, and Patrick can feel the warmth radiating from David’s right leg to his left. He has to remind himself that David’s waiting for him to speak.

“I realized that I loved her, but not the way she needed to be loved. Not the way she deserved. I figured out that just because something happens easily doesn’t mean it’s right. And that just because something is difficult doesn't mean it's wrong.”

It might be the most honest thing he’s ever said out loud. It doesn’t matter that he said it to someone he's only know for a few hours, even though he can't shake the strange feeling that he’s known David for much longer than that. What matters is that he said it. For once the nagging voice in the back of his head is completely silent.

He steals a look at David out of the corner of his eye. He’s staring at Patrick with something akin to awe.

“Woah,” he says quietly.

“Sorry.”

David shakes his head, confused. “For what?”

“That was probably more answer than you were looking for. It was a lot to dump on you so, uh, yeah. I’m sorry.”

“Look, I’m _really_ not one to judge. If the Rose family had a motto it would probably be ‘death before sincerity’, so you can take this next part with a grain of salt, but even though you think that avoiding Rachel is a very cowardly thing to do, I also happen to think it’s very kind.”

Patrick can’t believe his ears. He’s avoided talking about the break up with all his family and friends because he was so worried they’d think he was selfish, and the first person he actually tells the truth to calls him kind.

“Seriously?”

“Absolutely. You obviously care about her. You want her to be happy. But you know that she’ll never really be happy with you because you can’t really be happy with her. So you removed yourself from the equation. I’m sure it doesn’t feel that way to her, at least not right now, but that was the kindest thing you could have done for her.”

Patrick sits in wonder of David Rose. He's spent the last year of his life holed away in Ray’s spare room, hiding from the world, convinced that he had what he had done was selfish. He's had to stop himself on three separate occasions (each one coming shortly after a receiving a text from Rachel) from reaching for his car keys with the intention of driving home and taking it all back. He had taken to going on increasingly long and difficult hikes in order to work through his thoughts. He’d finish them knowing that staying in Schitt’s Creek was the right decision, but not feeling any less guilty for it.

And here comes David, dressed in an outfit that probably cost more than a year of Patrick’s rent, hair perfectly coiffed, skin flawless, and in a matter of seconds he manages validate one of the hardest choices Patrick has ever made in his life; a year’s worth of guilt made to feel insignificant in an instant. 

“I know you mentioned at one point that you do something with art galleries, but have you ever considered a career in PR?” Patrick asks. “Seriously, I’d happily pay you to just follow me around and make all my worst decisions sound better.”

“Oh please,” David laughs. “You couldn’t afford me.”


	7. The lesser of two evils

_I realized that I loved her, but not the way she needed to be loved._

Now just what the hell did _that_ mean? David knows what he _wants_ it to mean. 

He wants it to mean: _I loved her, but I wasn’t sexually attracted to her. On a totally unrelated note, do you want to make out for a while?_

But there are no guarantees that their break up had anything to do with his sexuality. Maybe she had a really extreme foot fetish and after fifteen years Patrick just wanted to keep his socks on when he got home from work for once. Maybe she was polyamorous and he couldn’t deal with the idea of opening up their relationship. Maybe she got tricked into joining Scientology and needed to be with someone operating at the same Thetan level as her. There were just too many maybes. 

Ambiguous wording and unknown sexual preferences aside, he still can't help but feel a small glimmer of hope at the news that Patrick was very much unattached. The question that remains is what to do about it. 

On the one hand, he doesn’t want to try to make a move while they’re stuck in the elevator. If he does and Patrick turns him down, they will literally be stuck together with nowhere to run. David once thought that if every person got their own personalized hell, his would involve being stuck in a room with every straight guy who he’d ever misread and ultimately rejected him. 

The room would need to be pretty large to accommodate everyone, especially if Satan or Ann Coulter or whoever else was in charge of Hell decided to include the ones who had fun ‘experimenting’ with David for a night or two only to go back to their wives and girlfriends they'd failed to mention before when faced with the cold light of day. Yet somehow the idea of being stuck with just Patrick in this tiny broken down elevator feels so much worse to him.

While trying to hook up with Patrick while they’re stuck here is less than ideal, there is also the very real concern that once they get out, they might never see each other again. The odds of them being trapped together in the first place had to be a million to one, and David's pretty sure the odds that Patrick would want to spend the rest of his trip with him could be about the same. Patrick could be leaving town tomorrow for all he knows, and then the chances of seeing him ever again will pretty much drop to zero.

That leaves David with an option that, historically speaking, has never served him well: he's going to have to wing it. And part of winging it means he has to keep Patrick talking.

He checks his phone for the time and finds that they’ve got twenty minutes left until midnight. 

He shows it to Patrick, who lets out a bemused little chuckle.

“This definitely isn’t what I pictured when I decided to spend New Year’s Eve in New York.”

David switches over to his clock and sets an alarm for 12 AM. It isn’t fireworks over the Sydney Opera House, but it’s better than nothing.

**11:41**

“You know, it just occurred to me that I never actually asked where you were headed tonight. My first guess would normally be a party of some kind but your outfit is kind of throwing me off.” He gestures at Patrick’s decidedly practical ensemble.

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” Patrick asks, looking down at himself.

“Nothing,” David tells him brightly, “if you’re going on a Thanksgiving day hike with Oprah.”

Patrick squints at him. “I can’t tell if that was supposed to be an insult.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know that I hold Oprah in the highest regard.”

“Uh-huh. Well, I’m sure she appreciates it. And to answer your original question, I was actually heading over to Times Square to watch the ball drop.”

David stares at him, waiting for him to break and start laughing. When that doesn’t happen, he has to ask, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Uh...no. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to on New Year’s Eve in the city?”

David snorts. “Not unless you brought an adult diaper with you.”

“ _What?”_

Oh no. Patrick doesn’t know. And here he's been operating under the assumption that Patrick was one of those ‘research everything down to the most minute details’ types.

“Okay, wow. Umm, where to start?”

“The diaper. Start with the diaper please.”

“Jesus Christ,” David groans. “Alright, well, first off: if you wanted to go to Times Square to watch the ball drop, you should’ve been there about sixteen hours ago to stake out a spot. Which is where the adult diaper comes in handy because they don’t have any public bathrooms there, so if you leave your spot to go take a piss, you lose it.”

“Oh God.” Patrick is now approaching the appropriate level of horrified that David feels he should be at.

“There are no food vendors either, so this little feast here,” he rattles the the bag of trail mix which now consists almost exclusively of raisins, “would have had to last you the entire day.”

“I didn’t know,” Patrick says, now looking a little slack jawed.

“Yeah, well it’s not like you ever see Anderson Cooper relieving himself into a pair of Depends on TV. Times Square on New Year’s Eve is basically hell on earth, and the only people who seem to know that are the ones who actually live here.”

“So I guess being stuck in here with you is the lesser of two evils?”

David shrugs. “I’ve been called worse.”

**11:46**

David has started in on the airline pretzels when an odd realization hits him.

“You want to know something weird?” he asks.

“Always.”

“I used to really worry that the closest I’d ever get to being married was dating a production assistant from Say Yes to the Dress, but I think it’s actually for the best that I’ve never been engaged.”

Patrick laughs, and David wonders if he should clarify that the production assistant thing wasn’t a joke, but Patrick looks amazing when he laughs so let's it go.

“Not that everyone _has_ to get married,” Patrick says, “but why would that be for the best?”

“Look at where getting broken up with by the Doms got me,” he replies, waving a hand at their temporary prison. “Just imagine how much worse it would have been I’d actually been engaged to either of them.”

“Sorry, the Doms?”

Shit, Alexis was rubbing off on him from ten thousand miles away. “Oh umm, yeah. It’s the nickname my sister came up with for them since they basically had the same first name. She was of the opinion that since they both turned out to be huge pieces of shit and the relationships are over with anyways, she doesn’t need to bother referring to them individually.”

“Huh.” Patrick nods appreciatively as though he thought Alexis’s logic was sound. David is suddenly grateful for those ten thousand miles as he doesn’t think he could cope with a further imbalanced social dynamic right now. “The Doms...so that would be Dominic?”

David scrunches his face up like he just caught a whiff of wet trash. “Correct.”

“And…” he trails off, apparently wracking his brain for another male name that starts with ‘Dom’ and drawing a blank. 

“Dominique,” David supplies, putting him out of his misery.

“Dominique,” Patrick echoes, putting particular emphasis on the second syllable. “Dominique, as in - ”

“A woman,” David finishes for him. “You thought both my exes were men.” It’s a statement, not a question.

David is used to this, has actually come to expect it.

“I’m s-sorry,” Patrick stammers, and David thinks this might be the first time he’s been turned on by a vocal tic. “I made an assumption, a really stupid one, and now you probably think I’m an asshole, which is totally fair.”

David starts to laugh, which appears to catch Patrick completely off guard. He knows he shouldn't be enjoying this half as much as he is, but Patrick’s been teasing him since the moment they crashed into one another and there’s something deeply satisfying about the shade of fire engine red his face is turning.

“It’s fine,” he hiccups a little as the laughter subsides. “You didn’t accidentally commit a hate crime, you don’t have to look so freaked out.”

“Sor - ”

“And stop apologizing.”

“...okay.”

Patrick chews at his bottom lip nervously and oh the things David would like to do to that lip. 

“Look, you think I don’t know what kind of vibe I give off?” David asks him, and it’s mostly rhetorical because he doesn’t need Patrick to tell him what he’s known for years.

Patrick doesn’t seem to know how to answer that. If he says yes, David will know he’s lying. And he’s probably worried that saying no will just make him look ignorant.

“Doesn’t make it right.”

“No,” David agrees. “But it doesn’t make you an asshole either. Look, I came out as pan when I was nineteen. Do you know how fucking exhausting it would be if I still got offended at every person who comes along, hears my voice, sees my clothes, and in a few cases meets my mother, and assumes I’m gay? I tried it for a while. Turns out giving a shit about what people think of you gets old pretty fast.”

“Pan?” 

“Pansexual.”  
  


Patrick stares at him blankly and for probably the thousandth time in his life David wishes they would just include a ‘P’ in the damn alphabet thing so he would stop having to explain this part to people.

“You have no idea what that is do you?” David asks gently.

“Not a clue,” Patrick admits. “My kingdom for the ability to google right now.”

“Don’t worry about it. If the town you’re from is as small as you say, I think we can let you work on a sliding scale of wokeness.”

“How very kind of you,” he laughs. 

“Well, I try. Okay, so, pan - ”

“David, you really don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

“I know I don’t, but I’m going to anyway if only to spare you from future attempts at shoving your foot in your mouth. But before I start I need to know something - do you drink wine?”

**11:58**

“So your parents didn’t care when you came out?”

Patrick has taken David’s explanation of his sexuality remarkably well. He’s even asked a few questions. Nervously, of course, and very awkwardly phrased, but David has long since preferred to have people be direct and ask a potentially stupid question then quietly make assumptions about his love life. 

“I wouldn’t say they didn’t care. They didn’t object or try to talk me out of it, if that’s what you mean.”

“That must have been nice,” Patrick says softly. He’s staring down at the floor, a distant look in his eye. 

“Well I didn’t really give them a choice,” David says. “I brought home this couple in college and kind of just told them to deal with it.”

Patrick looks back up at him and smiles. 

“My dad worries about me,” David admits. 

“Worries how?”

“Nothing too dramatic,” he replied. “I always lived in big cities, went to pretty progressive schools. No one was going around shunning me or praying for my soul. I guess it's because I've always been a very...particular person. I think he just convinced himself that my life might be a little, I don’t know, easier, I guess, if I just picked a gender and stuck with it.”

“Seriously?”

David shrugs. “Parents.” 

He wonders if he’ll understand just what he means by that, but Patrick nods. “Parents."

"I don't even know if he still thinks that's true. If he does then he keeps it to himself."

“Well I guess if you ever wanted to prove your dad’s theory wrong, I’d make a pretty good exhibit A.”

“What do you mean?”

“Fifteen years with the same woman and here I am. Ask your dad to let me know when it starts getting easier.”

David isn’t sure if ‘here’ is the elevator, or New York, or just the small square of carpet he occupies next to David. He wants to ask him to specify, but he’s also afraid of what the answer might be. Then he turns his head to find Patrick looking back at him, and suddenly he feels a little brave.

“There are worse places to be,” David says, his voice low enough that Patrick probably couldn’t have heard him if they hadn’t been sitting so close to one another. 

Patrick doesn’t say anything. He’s staring at David and David can’t think straight, can’t think about anything except for the tiny specks of hazel that are scattered throughout Patrick’s irises, and how he would never know they were there if Patrick face wasn't only a few inches away, if he wasn’t staring at at David, and does he not need to blink because it feels like time has slowed to a crawl and he should really have to blink by now.

Out of the corner of his eye David can see his phone screen. The timer is in its final minute, only fifteen seconds left until midnight. What do people usually do at midnight? Sing Auld Lang Syne? No - well, yes, some of them do - but no. They kiss someone. Someone they love, someone they like, maybe someone who just happens to be standing next to them. People tend to get a lot less picky when that timer gets closer and closer to zero.

Patrick just happens to be next to him. Through a weird series of events that could probably never be repeated, Patrick happens to be next to him in this elevator with only ten seconds left in the year. 

Patrick stares at David.

David stares at Patrick.

**Five**

Patrick’s eyes flicker to David’s lips.

David eye’s flicker to Patrick’s. 

**Four**

Patrick moves his head by an almost infinitesimal degree. David wouldn’t have been able to see if they weren’t eight inches apart.

**Three**

Patrick lets out a slow breath. David can smell apples.

**Two**

David moves by an equally infinitesimal degree. Small enough to pretend he hasn’t moved at all if Patrick doesn’t notice. Patrick notices. 

**One**

They both lean in with an intent that throws any chance of plausible deniability out the window.

**BANG**

The sound of metal slamming against metal bursts out from the direction of the doors, the shock of it jolting both men back against the far wall. 

**BANG**

It happens again, followed by an awful groan of springs and levers fighting against heavy pressure.

David’s hand finds Patrick and he grabs hold of it without thinking. “What the fuck is that?!”

“I don’t know,” Patrick replies. He doesn’t push David’s hand away.

“Please tell me that’s not a cable about to snap.” He can feel himself about to start hyperventilating.

Patrick shakes his head but doesn’t look much calmer than David. “No, I think it’s coming from the - ”

Another **BANG** , and a gap in the elevator doors appears, only and inch or so at first, and then wider and wider until the doors are cranked open enough for a face to emerge between them.

“You two alright in there?” the face asks in a heavy New York accent.

David and Patrick exchange a bewildered glance.

“Umm, yeah,” Patrick answers. “We’re fine, just a little stuck.”

The face disappears and then reappears a moment later.

“Any chance one of you is named David? David Rose?

“Uh,” David stammers, “Yes?” He doesn’t know why he says it like a question. The adrenaline dump he got when the banging noise started still has his heart pounding and he’s finding it hard to think straight. 

“Yes,” he says again, sounding more sure of himself this time. “I’m David Rose, why?”

The face glares at David. “No offense buddy, but your sister is a real piece of work.” 

**

David has never been more grateful for Alexis’s ability to nag someone into doing anything she wants them to. While he and Patrick had spent their night trading insults and making increasingly direct eye contact with one another, Alexis had been, in her words, “saving David's ass”.

When he didn’t call or text that he’d made it home by ten o’clock, she had started to get worried. Even if he couldn’t find a cab or the subway wasn’t running, David should have been able to make the walk back to his place in less than an hour. So Alexis started texting anyone she could think of that might have been at the party to ask if maybe David had stuck around after all.

Most of the party-goers either didn’t have their phones on them, or were too shit faced to see straight and ignoring their phones completely. Irony of ironies, she eventually hit paydirt with one of the Doms. 

_No, they hadn’t seen David, but was he planning on coming by because they were so looking forward to catching up?_ Alexis had resisted the urge to tell them in just how many positions they could go fuck themselves, and instead asked if they could at least tell her the name of the hotel. Dominic or Dominique (she hadn’t bothered to figure out which one she was talking to) disappeared for a few minutes and she began to worry they’d forgotten her request altogether when a text finally came through with a name: The Carver.

Alexis looked up the number for The Carver and put on the ‘let me speak to your manager’ tone that many a retail employee had come to despise and fear in equal measure over the years. She gave the night clerk a description of David and asked if they’d seen him leave in the past hour. No, they told her, no one had come out of the elevators all night. And no, they weren’t going to check their security cameras to confirm. The clerk insisted that it was too much of a hassle, but Alexis suspected it was simply because the hotel didn’t actually have any working cameras installed in the lobby. 

Something about the fact that they’d specified that they hadn’t seen a single person come out of the elevator all night set off an alarm in her head. Even then, with her customer service tone cranked up to eleven and three separate threats of a lawsuit, it had still taken her over an hour to get somebody on the phone who was willing to force the night clerk to check if the elevators were working. 

She got a call back five minutes later confirming that the elevator wasn’t working, and neither was its emergency phone. Alexis was ready to start making demands with a previously unheard of level of shrillness when the general manager told her they’d already called in someone from building maintenance to get the doors open. 

This, at least, is the story David gets after the fact, as told across roughly five hundred text messages from Alexis that all hit David’s phone the second he gets a signal.

It turns out that the elevator had only descended about five feet before coming to a stop. When the maintenance guy starts to pry the doors open, David can see a chunk of cement wall with and a four foot gap that revealed the fifth floor hallway above it.

He turns to Patrick expecting him to look as relieved David feels, but instead finds him staring at the elevator doors with the strangest expression. If David had to put a name to it, he might have called it disappointment. Patrick finally notices David staring at him and quickly shifts his face into an easy smile. “And you thought we were going to die in here,” he teases.

“And you thought we’d be here for at least another ten hours,” David points out.

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees. “Guess we were both wrong.” He doesn’t sound particularly happy about it, and David realizes that after the initial feeling of relief he'd experienced when they found out they were being rescued, he doesn’t feel too happy about it either.

They were about to kiss when the maintenance guy interrupted them. David knows it, the way he knows that if his parents ever had to make a choice about who to rescue from a sinking ship, they’d end up on the lifeboat together and he and Alexis would be left fighting over a floating chunk of door. 

It would be easier to pretend nothing happened, or that had been about to happen. That they’d just been sharing a quiet, completely platonic moment. That no one had looked at anybody’s lips because people don’t go around platonically staring at other people’s lips. David knows how much easier that version of events would be to deal with, but it would also be a lie. What was it Patrick had said before? _Just because something comes easily doesn’t make it right._

Patrick is kneeling down, gathering his shirt and jacket off the floor. David wants to say something, anything, to let him know that he was one hundred percent on board with what they had been so close to doing before the doors opened, but he can’t. The words sit in his throat like a lump of dry saltines in need of a large glass of water to wash them away.

As positive as he is that he and Patrick were about to kiss, David also knows the variables have now changed. Just because Patrick might have been willing to kiss him in the elevator, a place entirely sealed off from the outside world, doesn’t mean he’ll want to do it outside that artificial bubble. What’s he going to do, invite David up for a nightcap with a wink and a smile? Judging from the distant looks in his eyes as he zips up his jacket and swings his backpack over his shoulder, David wouldn’t count on it. Still, he has to say _something_.

“So, um, what do you think - ” his question is cut off by the maintenance guy’s voice.

“Alright,” he says, “this should be wide enough for you to get through, you just gotta come out one at a time.”

David looks at Patrick, who fans his arm out toward the door. “After you,” he says. 

David wants to smile at him, maybe do a little curtsy, but his body doesn’t seem to want to cooperate. “Uh, okay, thanks,” he murmurs and moves to hoist himself up on the ledge created by the bottom of the fifth floor. He gets one foot up when his balance starts to fail him. He’s about to fall backwards when he feels a strong hand press into the center of his back.

“I got you,” Patrick says, pushing him forward. The maintenance guy grabs one of his hands and pulls him the rest of the way.

David straightens his coat and runs his hands along his jeans checking for tears. Well, tears other than the ones they came with. He turns around to offer Patrick a hand but he's already pulled himself out and is getting to his feet.

“Gentlemen,” the maintenance guy announces, “If you’re leaving, I suggest you take the stairs.”

**

They’re in the lobby when David feels his phone buzzing in his pocket. He knows who it is before he even gets a look at the screen.

“I told you so.”

“Hi Alexis.”

“I told you so, I told you, I told you so.” She’s practically singing. David feels his appreciation for her rescue efforts quickly waning.

“Can you be more specific?” he asks.

“Umm, I don’t know, how about when I told you that going to that party was a terrible idea? That nothing good would come of it? That I was totally in the right to worry about you getting home?”

David looks over Patrick who has awkwardly paused himself in front of the door to the street. He’s staring down at his phone and periodically moving his fingers around, but David has a strong suspicion that he’s just waiting for him while trying really hard to _not_ look like he’s waiting for him. 

“Yeah well, you got two out of three.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” He doesn’t - no, _can’t_ \- get into it with her right now. If he had more time and wasn’t standing five feet away from him, David would be telling Alexis everything about Patrick, from the absurd size of his high school’s graduating class to the specks of hazel in his eyes. He might keep his growing obsession with Patrick's neck to himself. “Thank you, I mean it. I can’t believe you’re paranoia actually paid off.”

“It’s fine, you’re just going to owe me one.”

“Umm, excuse you? I don’t owe you anything. If anything you just owe me one less than you did before, and you’re working off a pretty major backlog.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, stubborn as always.

“Put it this way: we’re even for that time in Venezuela.”

“Which one?”

“My point exactly.”

Patrick looks up at him and quickly back down to his phone. David wonders how much longer he can make him wait before he gives up, and the knot forming in his stomach tells him not to push his luck.

“Look, I’ve got to go. Seriously, thanks for getting us out of there. I’ll give you a call tomorrow okay?”

“Wait, us? Who’s us?”

“Just me and…”

“And?” she presses.

“Someone nice.” He ends the call before she can ask anymore questions.

**

They’re standing on the sidewalk in front of The Carver, and David has an awful feeling that this is his last chance. Last chance at _what_ , he doesn’t know exactly. But he knows that if he doesn’t say something soon, Patrick is going to walk away, right out of his life.

“So - ” They both start to talk at the same time.

“Go ahead,” says Patrick.

“No, please, what were you going to say?”

“It’s nothing.” 

David doesn’t believe that. He raises a skeptical eyebrow and waits.

“I just...uh, I just wanted to say that if I had to get stuck with anyone in that elevator tonight, I’m glad it was you.” Patrick’s face is tinged pink, and David can’t tell if it’s from embarrassment or the cold.

David smiles and nods. “Of course...if you’d gotten stuck with someone with a less annoying sister, you’d probably still be in there.”

He hates himself for making the joke. He wants to say fuck it to the family motto and tell Patrick to come back to his place. He doesn't even care if they don’t end up kissing - okay, maybe he cares a little - so long as they get to keep talking. 

“Yeah, probably. Listen David - ”

“Do you want to come back to my place?” David forces the words out so quickly it ends up sounding more like ‘dyawannacmbaktmplace’.

Patrick’s eyes go wide. “What?”

David takes a breath and gives it another shot at a more human speed. “Would you like to come back to my place?”

Patrick smiles nervously and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Oh...uh, thank you, but you don’t have to do that. Really I was just going to…” He trails off, and David doesn’t think he had any idea how he was going to end that sentence when he started it.

“What?” David asks. “Go check out the aftermath in Times Square? The littered remains made up of soiled adult diapers and the thongs that middle aged women brought to throw at One Direction?”

“Well when you put it like that,” Patrick laughs.

“Come back to my place,” he says again, softer, more urgently. He doesn’t want to sound pushy, but he’s worried that Patrick thinks he’s offering just to be polite. “You shouldn’t spend New Years alone in a shitty hotel.”

“I didn’t. I spent it in a shitty hotel with you.” Patrick’s eyes are fixed on his, and though he said those words like they were a joke, his face is completely serious.

“So that’s a yes?” David feels the knot in his stomach twist painfully, and he’s clenching his fists in his coat pockets where Patrick can’t see them.

His mind is like a broken tape stuck on a loop: _say yes, say yes, say yes, say yes, say yes._

Patrick bites his lip, glances over to the revolving door of the hotel lobby, and then back to David. “That’s a yes.”


	8. What do you want

Patrick’s going to have a heart attack before they ever make it back to David’s place, he’s sure of it. He’s got all the symptoms: tightness in his chest, heart going a mile a minute, raging hard on. Okay, that last one might not be a symptom of a heart attack but it is _very_ distracting.

He said yes. David had asked him to come back to his place, and he said yes, and it was either going to turn out to be the bravest or the dumbest thing he’s ever done. It’s just one of those things in life where you can only judge the outcome, not the intent. 

_Maybe he just wants to hang out, have a drink_ , he thinks to himself.

_Maybe he wants to finish what you almost started in the elevator,_ a voice answers back.

Oh, yeah. _That_. 

Patrick knows how close they had come to kissing. He may be wildly inexperienced when it comes to kissing men, but it turns out the warning signs of an impending makeout are roughly the same regardless of gender. The eye contact, the quick glances to the lips, the slow lean forward. Isn’t it strange that the lead up to a kiss with David had been more satisfying than the result of any kiss he’d ever shared with a woman? 

If he’s being honest with himself, no. It isn’t strange at all.

He watches as David attempts to order them an Uber, which judging from his body language isn’t going too well.

“Fucking highway robbery,” David curses at the screen.

“Surge pricing?” Patrick asks.

“Surge pricing,” David grumbles. “And every single cab that’s passed us in the last five minutes already had a fare.”

“Subway then?”

David grimaces. “If you don’t mind squeezing into a car with the unwashed masses.”

“Not as much as I mind the cold and the rain.” The weather, which had mercifully died down earlier in the evening, is slowly picking back up with a vengeance. Cold sheets of rain are starting to come down at an angle, buffeted by heavy winds. David looks like he wants to put up a fight but then he takes another look at the state of things from underneath the hotel awning and changes his mind. 

He flips up the collar on his coat and turns back to Patrick. “There’s a stop at the end of the next block.” 

Patrick zips his jacket up to the neck and pulls a wool toque out of his pocket. “Good thing I came prepared for that Thanksgiving day hike huh?”

David tries to glare at him but Patrick can see the corners of his lips twitch with a smile as he steps out into the rain.

**

David wasn’t wrong about the masses. Well, they all seemed to be washed well enough, but they were also packed into the subway cars like sardines.

“It’ll clear out once we hit Penn Station,” David assures him. They’re both gripping the handrail that hangs down from the ceiling. Patrick’s attempting to keep some semblance of personal space between the two of them but it’s proving difficult as a dozen more New Year’s Eve party-goers, decked out in glitter coated hats and weather defying cocktail dresses, attempt to squeeze in before the doors close.

A red head in a barely-there green number slams into Patrick, sending him straight into David’s chest. 

“Sorry!” she giggles, not even turning around to see who she’d hit. 

David’s right hand catches Patrick around the waist and steadies him. “I got you,” he says, giving the stink eye to the back of the girl’s head. “No one believes that color didn’t come out of a bottle honey!”

The girl spins around to see where the insult came from but David is already pretending to stare intently at one of the subway maps on the wall like he’s trying to find their stop. 

“Thanks,” Patrick says under his breath, “I don’t think anyone’s ever defended my honor before.” 

“Don’t worry about it, I was defending us all from that terrible dye job.”

Patrick snorts and David grins down at him. They both seem to realize at the exact same moment that David still has his hand on Patrick’s waist. He straightens himself up and David releases him. He wonders what he’d have to do to get the duplicitous ginger to give him another good shove. 

**

The subway car is almost empty by the time they hit Christopher Street Station and David motions for them to get off. They spend the five block walk to David’s apartment in relative silence as they both bury their heads against the cold.

When he brings them to a stop in front of a sparkling building, all glass and steel and light, Patrick assumes he’s screwing with him. “You live _here_?”

“Uh, yeah,” David says, sounding a little self conscious. “Just for the past year or so.” 

David nods at the doorman, an imposing looking older man with broad shoulders who gives Patrick a once over that makes him feel like he’s being analyzed for points of weakness by the Terminator. 

“Evening Stefan.”

“Evening Mr. Rose.”

Patrick wonders if he should be introducing himself, not really being familiar with New York doorman etiquette, but then David’s placing a hand on the small of his back and nudging him through the door.

The lobby is brilliantly, almost clinically white. Floor to ceiling marble, with a wall of glass facing out to the street. Patrick is so busy looking around the room that he almost runs straight into David’s back. He’s come to a halt in front of a bank of elevators and he’s eyeing them nervously.

“Feeling a little gun shy?” Patrick asks.

David sighs nervously. “It just sort of feels like tempting fate, you know?”

“Yeah, but didn’t you also mention that you live up on the twelfth floor? I guess we can take the stairs if you really - ”

“Hard pass,” David declares, swiping a keyfob in front of a small black screen to the right of the closest elevator. “I’m soaked and all I want right now is to get these clothes off and get into something warm.”

Patrick feels his mouth go dry. He wonders if this is some weird meta-physical ability he’s just come into: think about someone taking their clothes off enough and eventually they’ll volunteer to do it themselves.

A soft chime sounds above them and the metal doors slide open soundlessly. _The Carver could stand to learn a thing or two from this place._

Patrick steps in and looks for a button to push for the twelfth floor, but the elevator appears to be completely button free. The doors close behind David and they begin to rise, seemingly unprompted. 

“This have something to do with that little white thing on your keychain?”

David nods, holds up the nondescript white fob. “All access key. Need it to get into the building when no one’s on duty, and it calls an elevator directly to my floor.”

“So if you lost it, on a scale of one to screwed - ”

“Very. Fifteen hundred dollar fine level screwed.”

“ _Fifteen hundred_?” Patrick spent less than that on his first car.

“Replacement fee, plus the cost of recalibrating every electronic lock in the building. People who live here are willing to pay for privacy.”

“If they valued privacy you think they’d live in a building that isn’t like ninety percent windows.”

“There’s a special coating on all of them. Practically impossible to see through from the outside under direct sunlight, and even harder to photograph.”

Patrick used to think he grew up middle class, but he’s starting to feel distinctly peasant-like just from some high tech windows and a shiny lobby.

They’re standing in opposite corners and the distance feels infinite. All Patrick can think about is how much smaller the elevator at The Carver was, how he couldn’t have gotten this far away from David if he’d wanted to, not that he ever did. They come to a stop at David’s level. There’s only two units on the entire floor, one to the right of the elevator and one to the left. David points to the right and Patrick follows.

“No neighbors yet,” he informs him. “The building was completed just over a year ago but they can’t find any buyers.”

“How much are they asking?”

David cringes as he fumbles for the door key. “You really want to know?”

Patrick considers it for a second and decides, “No, not really.”

“Didn’t think so.” David finally finds the right key and pushes the door open.

Patrick steps into the entryway and for a second he’s positive that he’s teleported to a different building. He has to stop himself from going back out into the hallway to confirm they didn’t. 

He expected an apartment modeled along the same lines as the rest of the building: white marble, ultra-modern fixtures, cold steel accents. What he gets is a unit that looks like it was built by someone determined to undermine every architectural choice made on behalf of the rest of the building. Aside from the windows that make up the entire western face of the apartment, every wall is solid brick. Shelves of dark wood and wrought iron tables decorate the living room, which is centered around a large, well worn, mahogany leather couch.

A few pieces of artwork dot the walls, most black and white photography, but Patrick can’t actually tell of what. He moves closer to the nearest piece and realizes that it’s a nude photograph of...well, he can’t actually tell. The photo clearly contains two different people embracing, just based on the contrasting skin tones, but he can’t tell really what body parts he’s actually looking at, let alone the gender of the subjects. He thinks he can make out a limb here and there, but the longer he stares the less sure he is. 

“Not what you expected,” David’s voice comes from behind him.

Patrick tears his eyes away from the photograph. David is shedding his coat and hanging it on a hook next to the front door. “The apartment,” he says. “It’s not what you expected, is it?”

“Uh, no,” Patrick admits, peeling off his gloves and tucking them into his jacket pockets. “Definitely not. I guess I was expecting something…”

“Whiter?” David suggests.

“Sort of.” A memory solidifies in his mind. “You ever see Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?”

David brows furrow together. “Umm, I didn’t grow up under a rock, so yes?”

“I was just thinking about the scene where Ferris describes how Cameron’s house is like a museum. Very beautiful, very cold, and you’re not allowed to touch anything.”

David nods, seeing his point. “Yeah, that’s not exactly my aesthetic.” He gestures to the brick walls. “I prefer a living space to have warmth and texture. I like for it to feel inviting.” He looks back at Patrick, finds his gaze and holds it. “I like to touch things.”

_Jesus Christ._

Patrick feels his cock twitch.

“Can I take your jacket?” David asks, like he didn’t just send most of the blood in Patrick’s body rushing south.

“Sure,” Patrick hears himself reply. He unzips and tosses the jacket to David, who shakes the remaining water that clings to it over the kitchen sink.

He examines it closely and frowns. “Maybe I should just toss this in the dryer instead.”

“You don’t have to do that.” Patrick has an insane thought that maybe laundry is foreplay for David, and now he knows he’s losing it.

“It’s no trouble,” David says. “I was going to change anyway, I’ll be back in two seconds. There’s a bar cart over there if you want to fix yourself something to drink.”

He points to a display of various liquor bottles in his living room and disappears into a back room. Patrick wanders over and finds four different types of whiskey, a bottle of vodka, and another of tequila. Patrick considers the whiskey for a moment but decides against it. He can barely think straight, _ha-fucking-ha_ , as it is. He doesn’t trust himself to throw booze into the mix.

He hears movement behind him and turns to find David looking at him from next to the couch. He’s wearing a simple but well fitting white t-shirt and a pair of impossibly soft looking black sweatpants with an oddly low crotch.

Arms.

David has arms. Long, masculine arms, with a coating of thick black hair over olive skin.

Of course he has arms, Patrick knew that, but now they’re right there and that shouldn’t be such a big deal but he can’t stop looking at them and God he is so _screwed_.

“You don’t want anything to drink?” David asks, nodding at the bar cart. 

Patrick shakes his head, not trusting himself to speak.

David takes a step towards him.

“Are you hungry? I’ve got, like, four different kinds of leftovers in my fridge right now.” 

His voice is light and charming, that of a polite host, but his eyes are boring into Patrick like he can tell exactly what he’s thinking right now. 

Arms. He’s thinking about arms. 

He shakes his head again. 

David takes another step forward, and now he’s close enough that Patrick can catch a whiff of his breath and notices it’s minty. He brushed his teeth. Fuck.

“So you don’t want anything to drink and you don’t want anything to eat.” He ticks off fingers like he’s running through a list. Patrick takes a tiny step back and feels his back meet the wall. “What do you want?”

Patrick looks down at his feet and rocks, heel to toe, heel to toe.

_What do you want Patrick?_

It’s not David this time. It’s the goddamn voice in the back of his head.

_You came all this way, what did you think you were going to do? Play Pictionary?_

_Shut up._

_No._

**_Shut up._ **

**_What do you want?!_ **

He rocks up on to his toes again, but this time he lets his body continue to fall forward. David’s lips crash into his, meeting him halfway through the fall.

Patrick wraps a hand around the back of David’s neck and pulls his whole body against him. David matches his enthusiasm and then some, pinning Patrick between himself and the wall. This was not the kiss they were going to have in the elevator. Patrick doesn’t know how he knows that, but he does. That kiss was going to be soft and sweet. It was going to be the slow meeting of lips, the shy brush of one hand against another.

This kiss is something else entirely. It’s exploding tension. Hands that grab instead of brush, lips that push and pull and open for air only to collide together again. It’s teeth and heat and the press of two bodies. Patrick can’t think clearly. The feel of David’s hand digging into his hips is making coherent thought impossible. Words flash through his mind without any context or structure to them. 

Hot. Hard. Arms. Hair. David. More. More. _More_.

Then David drags Patrick’s lower lip between his teeth and his mind goes white.

When David suddenly pulls away, Patrick feels like a fish suddenly being tossed on to dry land, desperate to get back to the water.

“W-what’s wrong?” he asks. “Is...is it something I did?”

David’s breathing is just as heavy as Patrick’s. He pulls his hands away from Patrick’s hips and places them, palms flats, against his chest. He squeezes his eye shut for a moment like he’s trying to get his brain back into focus. 

“No,” he breathes. He clears his throat, and his voice comes out a little firmer this time. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m, uh...I’m just a little worried that maybe I did.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Have you ever even kissed a guy before?”

Patrick bites his lip and for some strange reason he almost considers lying. It’s not a matter of pride or shame, he’s just scared that if David doesn’t like his answer then he might not kiss him again. 

“No,” he admits, overriding the temptation.

“Fuck,” David murmurs.

“Is that such a bad thing?” Patrick asks, a desperate edge to his voice. “Am I - is this bad?”

David’s face softens and Patrick can feel his hands relax against his chest. “Of course not. There’s nothing bad about you.” He looks him up and down like a starving man being offered a home cooked meal. “You are fucking _excellent_ , actually.” 

His words give a much needed stroke to Patrick’s ego, not to mention his desire to have David’s lips back on his.

“Then why - ”

“I don’t want to push you, or move too fast.”

“You’re not pushing me.” 

“I mean, I literally have you pinned to a wall,” David rightly points out.

Patrick lets out a breathless little laugh. “Does it look like I mind?”

David bites his lip nervously but doesn’t answer. Patrick raises a tentative hand to David’s face and holds it there. 

“Listen to me: I’m here because I want to be here. I’m doing this because I want to do this.” 

David leans into his touch and takes a small step back towards Patrick. “You’re sure?”

He’s close enough that Patrick could count every one of his eyelashes if he wanted to. He smells like mint and rain. 

“Very.” He moves his hand back from David’s face, sliding it up and into his hair like he’s spent most of the night fantasizing about doing. He closes his hand into a fist and tugs at it lightly. The part of him that was worried that David wouldn’t be the type to like having his hair messed with dissipates when his eyes slam shut and he lets out a little gasp. 

“Okay?” Patrick asks.

David moves his hands back to Patrick’s hips, this time slipping them under Patrick’s shirt so he can dig directly into his skin. “Very.’

And then David’s lips are on him again and he’s back against the wall but this time he’s pushing back, meeting every move David makes with a force of his own. He gives his hair another tug, sharper than before, and this time it earns him a groan from deep within David’s chest.

David’s mouth slides down to Patrick’s neck and latches on to the sensitive spot where it slopes into his shoulder. For the first time in his life he knows what the sensation of stubble scraping again his skin feels like, which is also how he discovers that there’s a direct connection from the spot that David’s teeth are digging into and his cock.

He feels David bite down, hard, and he can’t stop his hips from thrusting up desperately. David pushes back with his own hips and now Patrick knows what it’s like to have another man’s length pressing against him, hard and wanting, and how has he made it thirty years without knowing what this feels like?

It’s a struggle to get his brain and his mouth to cooperate with one another long enough to form speech, but eventually he succeeds in getting out a single word that gets his intentions across. “Bedroom.”

He knows David heard him as his assault on Patrick’s neck slows, but doesn’t stop. “Please,” he adds, trying hard to get his voice above a whisper. 

“What’s wrong with right here?” David’s voice is hot in his ear.

“Nothing,” Patrick manages to reply through the fog in his brain. “It’s just not where I pictured this happening.”

At that David finally pulls back to look at him, a Cheshire cat grin spreading across his face. “So you did picture this?”

Patrick takes comfort in the fact that his face is already red and burning from their kissing, making the blush he feels at David’s question unnoticeable. “Off and on,” he says. “Only for the past three hours or so.”

David laughs and it’s like music.  
  


“This could be happening in an elevator right now instead,” David points out.

“Yet another reason we should take advantage of your bed.” Patrick scratches his fingers lightly along the back of David’s neck and enjoys the sight of eyelids fluttering closed at the sensation. Patrick presses a quick kiss to his lips, because they’re there, and he wants to. 

“Mmhmm, okay, good point,” David says, caving to the argument being made by Patrick’s hands.

Patrick follows him down the same hallway he disappeared into earlier with his jacket. David reaches back to grab a handful of Patrick’s shirt and pulls him into a room dominated almost entirely by a king sized bed and more pillows than any person who sleeps by themselves could possibly need. His thoughts on David’s excessive pillow proclivity are cut short by the return of David’s mouth to his own. 

Their tongues dance against one another and even though Patrick has been kissing girls since he was fourteen it’s never felt anything like this. It’s like going from playing t-ball to the major leagues overnight. There’s just no comparison; this may as well be his first. He feels David’s hands slip under his shirt again but instead of grabbing on to him they’re lifting his shirt up and over his head. 

He expects to dive straight back into their kiss but he finds David looks at him nervously, and he realizes he’s waiting to see if Patrick freaks out over the decision to shed some clothing. Instead of telling him just how very fine with that decision he is, Patrick reaches out and grabs for the hem of David’s shirt and gives it a tug. David takes the hint and pulls it off and that’s how Patrick finds out just how big a fan he is of chest hair.

His hands move of their own volition to David’s chest, wanting to know what he feels like. David watches him with a curious little smile, but he holds still with his arms at his side and allows Patrick’s hands to wander. His skin feels searing hot and his heart is pounding hard and heavy under Patrick’s palm. He slides his hands down, one of his thumbs grazing over David’s nipple as he does. He hears him take a sharp little intake of breath and looks up to find his eyes have drifted closed. 

_Okay, wow, not just a thing for women_.

He makes a mental note to come back to his nipples later. His hands continue their journey down David’s torso, ghosting over his hips, and finally landing at the edge of his pants. He runs his fingers back and forth along the hem, eyes fixed on where a thick trail of hair runs down from David’s navel and disappears underneath the waistline of the pants.

Suddenly David’s hands are gripping his wrists, holding them still. Patrick looks up, worried he’s done something wrong, but he can see the heat in David’s eyes and doesn’t think he minded what Patrick was doing at all.

“We don’t - ” he starts, and then pauses, considering his words carefully. “Pants don’t have to come off. Yours or mine.”

Patrick looks at him, confused. “And if I want them to?”

David smirks. “If you want them to then yes, definitely. That's really all I was trying to say. That there’s no ‘have to’ tonight. There can just be ‘want to’ or ‘don’t want to’.”

Patrick feels a tightness in his chest and this time it doesn't just have to do with how badly he wants to sleep with David. “Thank you David.”

David nods like it’s nothing, like he didn’t just tell Patrick exactly what he didn’t even know he needed to hear.

“So that means if I _want_ to take your pants off…”

David guides his hands back to the waist of his sweatpants and releases his wrists. The corners of his lips twitch playfully. “Then by all means, follow your bliss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, I have no clue if those kind of window exist, I just think people who live in apartment buildings like that are fucking nuts.


	9. Apples and oranges

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter was terrifying. Enjoy :)

Patrick hooks two fingers into the waistband of David’s pants and slides them down with agonizing care. David expects him to take in the view while he does (he’s silently patting himself on the back for having put on his favorite pair of black Armani boxer-briefs when he was getting dressed earlier), but Patrick is looking into his eyes the entire time, even while his hands are brushing against David’s thighs. 

David becomes painfully aware of how quiet the room is. There’s nothing but the soft sound of him kicking away his pants and Patrick taking in deliberate, steadying breaths. 

Patrick deserves more than this. There should be music playing, something soothing and melodic. There should be warm mood lighting and candles and whatever other cliche thing he wished he’d had during his first sexual experience.

The first time anyone touched his dick, other than himself, was in the backseat of a 1998 Chevy Cavalier while an Alanis Morissette album played on the stereo. It was a quick and rather toothy blow job that ended in a coughing fit halfway through ‘Thank U’ after David’s grade nine chemistry partner realized he'd drastically overestimated his own gag reflex. All things considered, it’s a very low bar to beat.

David is pulled out of the memory by the feel of Patrick’s fingers ghosting against the outline of his cock. The sensation causes his breath to catch in his throat and he debates for a minute whether he should stop Patrick or allow him time to explore. The debate is brought to an abrupt end when Patrick turns his hand around and actually grips David’s cock through his underwear. Here he’d been worried that Patrick might not last very long, but it turns out that concern might have been a little misdirected.

_Get it together, it’s his first time, get it together, it’s his first time._ The words cycle through his head over and over like they’re a magic spell to ward against premature ejaculation.

But Patrick is still looking him in the eye and somehow that's turning him on even more than the hand on his dick, and _that’s_ definitely a first for David. He usually finds heavy eye contact to be a bit dramatic at best, and downright unsettling at worst.

David grabs Patrick’s face and pulls him into a deep, open mouthed kiss. He slowly works his hands down to his belt, an awful braided leather thing whose very existence David would normally find deeply offensive if he didn't have much more pressing things to focus on. In a matter of seconds he’s working Patrick’s jeans down over his ass. 

They make their way towards the bed, the mattress hitting the back of Patrick’s knees and sending him down on his back. He wraps a hand around David’s forearm, pulling him down on top of him and right back into the kiss. David tries to prop himself up, suddenly hyper-aware of how much weight he’s pressing down on Patrick and worrying that it might make him feel trapped, but Patrick’s grip is unyielding and he’s pulling hard at David’s shoulders like he won’t be satisfied until there’s no space left between them.

“I’m heavy,” David protests against Patrick’s lips.

“Good,” Patrick breathes back and David’s never been more turned on by a single syllable in his life.

He slides them up to the center of the bed and descends upon Patrick’s neck, which he suspects might be his new favorite place in the entire world. He would, if asked to in that exact moment, spend the rest of his days buried in Patrick’s neck, breathing in his scent, tasting the salt and sweat on his skin. He’d starve to death eventually, but God, what a way to go.

He bites down, working on the beginnings of a rather fantastic hickey, and Patrick arches up beneath him. David can feel his cock hard against his stomach and it takes every bit of willpower he possesses not to slide down and sink his mouth on to it. It’s definitely part of his overall plan, but he’s not pulling that move without some very enthusiastic consent from Patrick beforehand. When he feels Patrick’s hands snake down into his underwear and grab hold of his ass, he thinks that the ‘enthusiastic’ prerequisite probably won’t be too hard to fulfill. 

David takes a hand and begins to lightly trace along the outline of his cock, which earns him an actual whimper from Patrick, who thrusts up in search of more than just David’s fingertips. David detaches himself from Patrick’s neck and takes a second to admire his work. Patrick won't be able to look in the mirror for the next few days without remembering exactly what David did to him. He looks down at Patrick, cheeks flushed and eyes wide, and is flooded by an overwhelming desire to just make him feel _good_.

His fingers dance along the elastic band of Patrick’s boxers but he doesn’t try to take them off yet. “What do you want me to do to you Patrick?” he asks softly.

Patrick lets out a long, slow breath, and David knows he needs a moment to think. “Uh, I’m not...umm...you know maybe if you could stop moving your hand for a second?”

David gives him a chagrined little smile and holds his hand up in the air. “Sorry.”

Patrick lets out a shaky little laugh at the gesture. “No, it’s fine - _really_ fine - just a little distracting. Umm - what was I saying?”

“You were about to tell me what you want me to do to you.”

“Right. I was...okay.” Patrick pulls himself up on his elbows and David slides back to give him some space. Playfulness aside, he wants Patrick to give the question some serious consideration.

Patrick squeezes his eyes shut to allow himself to think and David notices his hand tapping nervously on the bedspread. “So, uh, you remember like five minutes ago, when I told you I wanted to be here, and I sounded pretty confident? I mean, at least I think I sounded pretty confident?”

“Mmhmm, I recall,” David replies, then feels the need to add, “It was pretty hot.”

Patrick opens his eyes and lets out another little laugh. “Thanks. The thing is, that was about as far as my confidence went.”

He must see concern in David’s face because he stops tapping his hand and slides it on top of David’s. “I still feel that way,” he insists. “About wanting to be here? And the taking off your pants thing? I definitely still stand behind that. It’s just everything else I’m a little less…”

“Sure of?” David offers.

Patrick nods. “Yeah. I, uh, don’t really have any idea what I’m doing. You’ve probably figured that out by now.”

“Hmm...I wouldn’t say you have ‘no idea’ what you’re doing,” David tells him, putting little air quotes around the phrase. 

“You wouldn’t?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I know it probably doesn’t feel that way right now, but let's just say your body has some _very_ good instincts.”

“Really?” Patrick perks up a little, though there’s still an undercurrent of disbelief in his voice.

David, feeling a little bold and saying a quick prayer that this goes over the way he intends it to, grabs one of Patrick’s hands and gently places it on to his still-hard cock. “My body is a big fan of your body’s instincts.”

Patrick doesn’t say anything, just stares transfixed at where his hand is now laying on David’s cock. He looks up and when their eyes meet David feels him _squeeze._ He jerks uncontrollably under Patrick’s hand and he realizes that if he doesn’t reign him in then he’s going to end up coming in his pants for the first time since his junior prom.

“Okay, easy there,” he says, gently pushing Patrick’s hand aside. Patrick ducks his head down like he’s embarrassed but David catches a glimpse of a smile on his face. “See what I mean? You just lack confidence, not ability.”

He puts his hand under Patrick’s chin and tips his face up to look at him. “And we really don’t have to worry about a lack of ideas, because I have _plenty_ of those."

"Yeah?"

"Oh yeah, mmhmm. Categorized, color coded lists and like, an entire mood board on Pinterest dedicated just to your neck and shoulders."

"My shoulders?" he laughs. "What do you want to do to my shoulders?" 

"Okay, so the better question is actually what don’t I want to do to them? But I have a few things I'd like to cross off my list before I even get to that."

“Like what?” Patrick asks, his voice low and thick.

“Well,” David says, skating a finger up Patrick’s thigh to the bottom of his boxers and giving them a light tug, “most of them involve taking these off. Is that okay?”

He sees Patrick swallow hard. “Yeah,” he breathes. 

David slides a finger into the waistband but pauses when an idea occurs to him. “How about this: I tell you what I’d like to do to you, and you give me a yes or no? Leave the ideas up to me for now.”

Patrick actually looks a little relieved at the suggestion. “Alright,” he agrees, though there’s still enough tension in his posture that David thinks a loud noise or sudden movement would send him jumping off the bed and onto the next flight back to Canada. “I think I can manage that.”

“I think so too. And just - uh, you can always change your mind. It’s important that you know that - important to me. A yes can become a no, and that’s fine. Okay?”

Patrick is staring at where David’s fingers are skimming across the skin below his navel and David’s not entirely sure he heard him, but then he gives one jerky nod of his head. “Okay.” 

The word is barely out of his mouth when David slides the boxers down and off in one smooth motion. His eyes fall to Patrick’s cock and _woah_. David’s no size queen and it’s not even like he’s porn star level hung, but still - _woah_. It is, in David’s humble opinion (an opinion informed by a _very_ promiscuous decade of his life), one of the most beautiful looking dicks he’s ever seen. 

_Good for you_ , thinks David. _Good for me too._

He goes to reach for it before he remembers himself. “I want to touch you now.”

It takes a couple seconds for Patrick to register he’s being spoken to. “Huh?”

“Your cock. I want to touch your cock. Okay?”

“Oh, umm, yes,” Patrick agrees quickly, now that his mind has caught up with what’s happening. “Please,” he adds, like it’s an afterthought. David thinks that the whole night could fall apart right now and he could still say that Patrick was the most polite guy he’d ever brought home.

David’s fingers descend lightly onto Patrick’s cock, swiping a drop of precum from the tip and smoothing it over the head. Patrick’s whole body twitches and jumps at the sensation. He wraps his fist lightly around the head and slides it down. The skin there feels softer than velvet but the cock itself is impossibly hard; David can feel his pulse thrumming in the veins that run along the shaft. He reaches the base and brings his hand back up to gather more of the wetness there. Instead of moving back down again, he works the head, palming it slowly but firmly, brushing his thumb along the underside with every few strokes. 

“Fuck,” Patrick sighs, his eyes glued to what David’s hand is doing to him. His hips start to move, just an inch or so at first, trying to find the beginnings of a rhythm against David’s hand. His cock is leaking freely now, enough for David to slip his hand further up and down as Patrick’s thrusts grow more bold. 

David knows he should be paying attention to Patrick’s face, looking for cues to make sure he’s not going too fast or too hard, but he is utterly entranced by the sight of the cock in his hand, and the whimpering noises its owner is making. It’s the whimpering that clues him in to how close Patrick is to coming, and David isn’t ready to be done with him yet. He brings his strokes to a stop, gripping him firmly by the base.

“I’m not ready for you to come yet,” he tells Patrick, who makes a soft whining noise in response. “Can I kiss your thighs?”

Patrick’s head jerks up so that he can see David. His brows knot together in confusion as that is clearly not the request he was expecting, but after a second he tells him, “Yes.”

David drops his head down to the inside of Patrick’s knee. He presses a kiss there, then slides a little further up his leg and does it again. He’s halfway up his thigh when he opens his mouth and grazes the soft flesh Patrick’s inner thigh with his teeth, and he feels Patrick jolt a little underneath him. He can see his cock twitching out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t move his hand from where he’s gripping him. 

He’s almost reached Patrick’s groin and David is completely drunk on his scent. The next time his mouth comes down he bites, hard, drawing Patrick’s flesh into his mouth. Patrick’s hands fly down and grab ahold of his shoulders. He’s worried that he went too hard and expects the hands to pull him away, but instead he feels his fingers dig into him and hold him fast in place. He suckles at the soft skin of Patrick’s thigh, inches away from his dripping cock, and he knows that when he pulls away there will be a mark left behind to match the one he already left on his neck.

He finally releases his leg and looks up to find Patrick gazing down at him with eyes half drunk from lust. His breath is coming in deep gulps. He licks his lips and all David wants to know is what those lips would look like wrapped around him. But he’s getting ahead of himself. 

“I have a couple more things I want to try, so I’m going to go ahead and ask you now. If they land well then you’re probably not going to be able to talk much in a minute.”

Patrick raises an eyebrow at the implication. “What kind of things?”

“I want to suck you off,” he says in a low voice. “I want to feel your cock my mouth and in the back of my throat. I want to feel your balls in my hand, and in my mouth. And then, after all that, I want you to come for me and I want you to let me swallow it.”

“ _Jesus fucking Christ,_ ” Patrick groans. He’s holding his head in his hands like it’s the only thing keeping him from falling apart. 

“Is that a yes?”

“I, uh - goddammit David. I can’t promise I’m not going to come way before you get to half of that.”

David smirks and presses a quick kiss to Patrick’s hip. “How about you let me worry about that?”

Patrick doesn’t look particularly confident in that reassurance, but he doesn’t offer up any more protests. “Then yes. Yes to...to everything you just said.”

He barely gets the words out when David wraps his mouth around the head of Patrick’s cock and his tongue slides over his slit. 

“Oh fuck!” Patrick cries, and it’s the last coherent word David hears for a while as everything after dissolves into moans and gasps of pleasure.

David quickly finds his rhythm, taking Patrick’s cock in long slow drags. He grips the bottom half in his hand so he can focus his attention on the head. Every few strokes he hollows his cheek and sucks him down hard, like he wants to swallow Patrick whole. With his free hand takes Patrick’s balls and squeezes them lightly, which earns him a shocked gasp that he swears sounds like his name. 

He releases his balls only to immediately replace his hand with his mouth. He sucks on one gently while he uses his hand to jerk Patrick off. He’s trying to keep a steady rhythm going but it’s getting harder and harder the more Patrick’s body starts to respond to his touch.

David can tell just how close Patrick is to coming. He can hear it in his voice as it goes high and reedy, and his balls tighten under David’s tongue. He’s done everything to Patrick that he promised to do, with one exception.

He moves his mouth back to Patrick’s cock and plants both hands on either side of his hips to hold him in place. In one swift and practiced move, David slips Patrick into his mouth and swallows him down to the root. His decision to hold down Patrick’s hips proves to be a wise one as his entire body attempts to arch off the bed. 

Usually David loves - _loves -_ getting face fucked. Under almost any other circumstance he would let his partner go free and set the pace, to use his mouth and his throat to bring themselves to completion. But this time he wants to be the one in charge of getting Patrick off. He wants to draw the orgasm from his body with _his_ hands, _his_ mouth, and _his_ tongue.

He sets an unrelenting pace, and he knows Patrick is only seconds away from finishing. His nails bite into David’s shoulders and when he hears Patrick try to stutter his name he understands that it’s an attempt to warn him, but it’s not like he doesn’t know what's coming. Patrick explodes into his mouth, thick bursts that burn sweet and salty and bitter on his tongue, and David focuses on swallowing everything Patrick gives him.

When he feels the last tremor ripple through him, David slowly pulls off Patrick’s cock and does a discreet wipe of the corners of his mouth. He’s already thinking of what he wants to say to him. Post coital pillow talk has never been his favorite thing in the world. Good sex wasn’t necessarily mutually inclusive with good conversationalists, and he usually begged off to take a shower with a quick ‘that was fun, feel free grab a bottle of water from the fridge on your way out’. 

He knows that isn’t going to fly with Patrick, but that’s as far as his thoughts make it on the matter because Patrick is grabbing his arms and hauling him up on top of him. Before he can object to what he thinks Patrick is about to do, strong hands snake behind his neck and bring his mouth crashing down onto Patrick’s. He opens up almost by instinct and there’s no hesitation when Patrick slides his tongue past David’s lips. He pulls back, breaking the kiss and leaving Patrick looking confused and desperate. 

“Are you sure?” he asks. “I can go brush my teeth or - ”

He’s cut off mid-sentence when Patrick pulls them back together. He feels Patrick’s arms lock around him and before he knows what’s happening Patrick is rolling them over in one surprisingly smooth motion. He lands on his back and Patrick straddles his hips, their mouths still moving against one another, sharing the taste David knows is on his tongue between them.

Patrick finally pulls back and his lips shine in the light of the bedside table, his expression raw and open. “I didn’t want you to go anywhere,” he says. 

He shifts a little, adjusting his position on top of David and inadvertently grinding down on his cock. David realizes how hard he is and now Patrick must realize it too. Patrick slips a hand down between them and gropes David through the Armanis that he has somehow managed to keep on for far longer than he would have thought possible. 

“Can I?” Patrick asks.

David doesn’t know if he’s asking to undress him, or touch him, or make him come, but his answer to all three is a resounding, “Yes. God yes.” Then he remembers how well mannered Patrick was even when he was on the edge of coming and adds, “Please.”

The remark earns a smile and then Patrick is pulling down David’s underwear and his cock springs out. Patrick stops moving when he sees it, his mouth hanging open ever so slightly. David suddenly feels self conscious in a way he hadn’t expected too. It usually wasn’t too hard to push aside any insecurities he had about his body when someone else was tearing off his clothes. As a general rule the people who are turned off by your appearance aren’t the same ones trying to get it naked, save for the occasional sadist and people who find themselves hitting some form of rock bottom.

But this is different. David is the first man Patrick has ever been with. He may not be the first one he’s ever seen naked, but taking in the sight of the man who swallowed your load not two minutes before is a far cry from changing in the locker room after gym class. Like apples and oranges, but with genitals.

“Patrick?” David asks hesitantly.

“Sorry?” He looks up at him, a little dazed.

“Umm, if you could maybe just tell me what’s going through your head right now? Because, uh, you kinda got _really_ quiet right when I got _really_ naked and I don’t know if I love what that implies, so…”

Patrick shakes his head a little and his eyes rake over David’s whole body.

“You’re gorgeous,” he says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and he’s only just now figuring it out. “That’s what I was thinking. That you’re gorgeous and that it took me way too long to get here.”

David’s heart does a little back-flip in his chest and he swears he feels himself get harder. Flattery kind of does that to him.

“Doesn’t matter how long it took. Just matters that you’re here.” He almost stops there. Later on, he’s going to wonder why he didn’t, but for now he hears himself adding, “Besides, if it had happened any sooner than you wouldn’t be here right now.”

_Oh God_ , he thinks. _Where the hell did that come from? One compliment and I’m practically declaring that fate sent him here? What am I going to do if he fucks me in the ass, marry him?_

It’s moments like these that make him grateful that mind reading isn’t an actual thing.

Patrick doesn’t seem to register the weight of what he’s just said, or if he did then he’s politely ignoring it for both their sakes. He runs a hand up David’s thigh. “I want to make you feel good,” he says, and David almost has to strain to hear him.

David’s desire for Patrick to touch him is now overriding his embarrassment, and he leans up to grab Patrick’s hand. “Anything you do is going to feel good. Honestly just watching you lick your lips a couple more times could probably get me there.”

Patrick chuckles and squeezes David’s fingers. “And if I wanted to return the favor?”

David realizes he’s offering to blow him, and it’s a testament to his self-control that he doesn’t fall back on to the mattress and tell him to have at it. He swallows that instinct and instead he says, “That is a _lovely_ offer, but it’s also not one you have to make. You know that, right? Like, it wasn’t a literal favor. Honestly, the pleasure was all mine.”

“Umm, no, I think a lot of it was definitely mine,” Patrick replies, and it takes a moment for David to register that he’s teasing him. 

_Stays on brand even when he’s naked_ , David notes.

“Fair enough.” David says, “but you still don’t have - ”

“I know I don’t have to. Remember what you said, about how there’s just ‘want’ and ‘don’t want’?”

“Yeah…”

“This falls under the ‘want’ category. You know, following my bliss?”

David is torn between being glad that Patrick took his words to heart and annoyed at having those words used to make fun of him while his dick is out. He decides that maybe he doesn’t have to handle Patrick entirely with kids’ gloves.

“Alright then - make me feel good,” he challenges.

His words seem to have quite an effect on Patrick, as the smile immediately disappears from his face. He reaches down and takes David’s cock in his hand. He squeezes it lightly, and David wonders if he should be offering any kind of guidance here, but then he’s sliding his hand up and swiping a drop of precum that’s gathered there on to his finger. David thinks he can feel his heart stop as he watches Patrick hesitantly bring the finger to his lips and taste it.

David is sure someone had written this exact scene in a porno he once watched, but there it had been a salacious, over-acted ordeal. The actor had practically felated his own finger, groaning theatrically the moment it touched his tongue. 

Patrick moves slowly, a living breathing bundle of nerves and hormones, and when his tongue slips over his finger and tastes David, there is a thoughtful expression on his face.

“You taste different,” he says, like a scientist recording his observations.

“Different than what?” David asks, amazed he can actually still participate in a human conversation at this point.

“Than me,” Patrick explains, and then he bends down to take David in his mouth.

David collapses back into the mattress as soon as he feels Patrick’s lips touch him. He wants to watch, he really does, but he’s worried that if he does he’ll end up coming too fast to give Patrick any warning. 

Instead he focuses entirely on the sensations of what Patrick is doing to him. Patrick holds just the head in his mouth at first, slowly working his tongue around like he’s familiarizing himself with David’s cock just a little bit at a time. Soon he takes a little more, enough to get into a steady up-and-down motion between the head and the top of the shaft. David feels him pull off completely and he wonders if something is wrong, if maybe Patrick has changed his mind about this whole thing, but then he feels him press a kiss to the very base of a dick. He works his way up the shaft like that, licking and kissing and exploring with his mouth.

When he reaches the head once more he suckles it gently, and David digs his hands into a bedspread. It’s taking every ounce of willpower he possesses not to thrust up into Patrick’s mouth. He knows that if he lets go of the bed, his hands are going to bury themselves in Patrick’s hair and then all bets would be off. 

Patrick works on building up a rhythm, and David can slowly feel him taking and more of himself into his mouth. He knows he’s reached Patrick’s throat when he feels a telltale gagging motion from Patrick followed by the sound of a muffled cough and a quick retreat from his mouth. 

“Sorry,” he hears him say in a rough voice.

“It’s fine,” David tells him, allowing himself to look down. What he sees, Patrick clutching his dick, lips red and shining, almost undoes him. “You’re doing so good.”

Patrick goes to take him in his mouth once more, and David leans back, eyes closed, and does nothing to control the moans that spill from his mouth.They fall back into their previous rhythm, and when it occurs to David that he might make another attempt to test his gag reflex, he taps Patrick on the shoulder to get his attention. 

“Hand,” he says desperately. “You can use your hand to - to….oh my fucking God, keep doing that...to help.”

Patrick is doing something with his tongue on the underside of the David’s cock that’s sending shock waves all the way up his spine. Patrick takes the advice about the hand and grips the bottom half of David’s shaft and allows himself to focus on the parts his mouth can comfortably reach.

David is close, _so_ close, and he has to tell Patrick soon because that’s not the kind of thing you just spring on someone the first time they do this.

“P-P-Patrick,” he stammers. “I’m close. In case - you don’t have - oh fuck, fuck, _fuck_!”

Patrick hears his warning but doesn’t slow his pace. He sucks hard, moving his hand in sync with his mouth, and before David can give him another warning he’s losing it. The orgasm hits him like a truck, every muscle in his body tensing at once. Sight, sound, and smell disappear, and for a moment the only sensation in the world is Patrick’s lips wrapped around his cock. He spills into Patrick’s mouth and he can feel him manage the first swallow, but then he’s pulling off and working his hand to get the rest.

The blowjob itself isn't the greatest he’s ever received, but the orgasm blows every other one in recent memory right out of the water. He suspects it might have something to do with the fact that they’d basically had five hours of foreplay leading up to it, but that’s just a theory.

Patrick crawls up the bed and collapses on his back next to David. They’re both breathing heavily, and David suspects it’s going to take a few minutes for faculties of speech to return to them. 

When he thinks enough time has passed that he can string together more than a couple of words at once, he looks over at Patrick, ready to offer him a glass of water, only to find his eyes closed and his chest rising and falling with the deep and steady breath of sleep.


	10. Versions

Patrick usually hates waking up in strange places. There’s always that awful initial moment of disorientation as his mind slowly becomes aware of his surroundings and all the ways they aren’t quite right: a pillow that’s just a little too soft, the scent of an air freshener that he didn’t pick out. He doesn’t like having his first moment of consciousness be a list of things he registers as being wrong.

He remembers reading somewhere that the human brain stays fifty percent awake the first time you sleep somewhere new. Half of your brain goes to sleep, and the other half stays on alert - a defense mechanism in unfamiliar environments. It explains every terrible night’s sleep he’s ever gotten in a hotel room. It’s why he made an effort to keep the same off campus apartment for three years running at university, just to avoid having to adjust to a new place at the start of each school year.

Which is why it makes absolutely no sense to him to find himself waking up in David’s bed feeling like he just had one of the best night’s sleep of his life. There is no moment of disorientation, no haze of sleep through which he has to piece together how he came to end up in a strange place. As soon as he opens his eyes, the entire night is there - from the moment they slammed into one another in the elevator to feeling of coming undone in his mouth while David’s name spilled off his lips.

He feels the bed shift somewhere to his right, and he turns his head to find David next to him, pulling a thick wool blanket more tightly around him. He can tell from the undisturbed expression on his face and the rhythm of his breathing that he’s still asleep. 

Despite the fact that he remembers collapsing on top of the bedspread last night, Patrick finds a similar blanket draped over his own body. David must have covered him after he fell asleep.

_Shit._

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep like that. He hadn’t expected to, not with how keyed up he was from the - well, from everything.

_The sex,_ he corrects himself. _No more placeholders._

He had sex last night. With a man. No - _with David_. Who, yes, is a man but also isn’t just some rando Patrick picked up at a bar, not that he’s ever picked anyone up at a bar in his life.

He stares at David and marvels at how peaceful he looks. It’s hard to reconcile the face he’s looking at now with the one that looked at him last night with fire in his eyes and told him he wanted Patrick’s cock down his throat. Patrick doesn't think he's going to be able to forget that face for a very long time. 

He could easily spend hours there reliving last night, but he also has an urge to pee that’s becoming increasingly hard to ignore, and was probably what woke him up in the first place.

David rolls over with a soft sigh, putting his back to Patrick and providing a window to slide out of bed with minimal chance of waking him. Patrick peels back the blanket and is immediately reminded that he fell asleep completely naked. As vivid as his memories are of last night, none of them seem to include where his underwear ended up.

He manages to make his way to the side of the bed without disturbing David and frantically checks the ground for his clothes. He finds his jeans and undershirt, but no sign of his boxers or sweater. He caves to the demands of his bladder and decides to look for them later.

It takes him three attempts to find the bathroom in David’s apartment, with the first and second sending him into a laundry room bigger than his room at Ray’s, and a bedroom that appears to have been converted into a massive walk-in closet.

David’s bathroom is meticulously clean, with black granite floors and walls of white subway tiles and black mortar. There’s a rainfall shower that could easily fit five people at a time, and Patrick has to stop himself from wondering if David’s ever actually tested out its capacity. 

What really blows his mind is a toilet that he thinks he would need a large instruction manual to operate if he had to do anything else but pee. It takes him a minute of staring at the control panel affixed to its side to figure out that it has a heated seat feature and a multi-setting bidet. He doesn’t know how many settings a bidet really needs, but David strikes him as the kind of person who is willing to pay to have every option available to him. For all he knows there might be a button somewhere on it that does your taxes and schedules your dentist appointments for you.

Finally, he does what he’s been avoiding doing since he set foot in here - looks at himself in the mirror. He doesn’t know why this should be hard for him. The reflection staring back at him is the same one that’s always been there. His mother's eyes and his father’s hair that goes wavy when it grows longer than an inch. He’s spent so much of his life compartmentalizing himself that it feels wrong, somehow, to look in the mirror and always see the same version of himself looking back.

In his mind, there are a dozen different versions of himself that he’s had to be at one time or another.

There’s the Patrick that told Rachel he loved her when he was only sixteen, and had no idea what those words actually meant.

There’s the Patrick who tried to tell himself there was no particular reason he sometimes stared for a second or two longer than necessary at his friend Derek getting out of the water when they spent the summer life-guarding at the lake.

There’s the Patrick who went away to college, swearing that he could be anyone he wanted to be in a whole new place, only to find out how hard old habits are to break.

There’s the Patrick that asked his mom for her mother’s engagement ring, and didn’t want to think about why the tears in her eyes when she put it in his hand made him feel like throwing up.

There’s the Patrick who packed everything he owned into his car one day, and told his parents that he’d been headhunted for a position as a financial advisor to a small town in southern Ontario, and how that kind of responsibility and experience would be invaluable to his career. 

There’s the Patrick that turned down an invite for a nightcap at Stevie’s place the first time they met at the Wobbly Elm. He claimed he had to get up early for work the next day, and felt his insides twist when she stared at him with a little too much understanding before declaring _no worries, maybe some other time_ , though she never offered again.

And then there's Patrick who agreed to come home with David last night, knowing exactly what would happen if he did. That Patrick, he has to admit,is the closest he’s felt to his actual self in a very long time. He couldn’t help it, as David had repeatedly demanded honest answers from him to different versions of essentially the same question - what do you want?

David has asked and Patrick, the real Patrick, had answered back. He’d wanted his hands and his mouth and his skin and the weight of his body pressing him into the bed. He’d wanted to smell him and to taste him and to make him feel all the things that he made Patrick feel, whether that was even possible or not. 

And every single one of those Patricks is staring back at him in the mirror right now. If something has changed, it must be on the inside. 

Well, one thing has changed on the outside - there’s now a dark purple spot on his neck, roughly the size and shape of David’s mouth. He has a hickey. He’s a thirty year old man with a hickey on his neck and no idea where his underwear is. He feels pretty good about the former, less good about the latter.

He slips on his jeans, resigned to going commando for the time being, and digs out his phone from the back pocket. 7 AM.

_Shit_ \- earlier than he’d thought. He figures out that he only got in four or five hours of sleep, which leaves him wondering how the hell he’s not more tired right now. He’d been planning on getting back into bed and waiting for David to wake up, but that could be hours from now, with no chance in hell that he’s going to be able to fall back asleep himself.

Is it weird to wait out in his apartment for him to wake up? Would it be less weird if he made him breakfast? Or more weird because that means he felt comfortable enough to go through David’s cabinets? Maybe he’s the kind of person who’s happy to let someone suck his dick, but helping themselves to the kitchen is a bridge too far. And if the kitchen is out of bounds, then helping himself to David’s shower is definitely out of the question.

He wishes David had just woken up before him and figured out the first move for the both of them.

Patrick knows he’s in desperate need of a shower and a shave, and that if there’s even the slightest possibility of kissing David again, which he _really_ hopes there is, it’s not going to happen with his current morning breath. That leaves him with one option - he has to go back to his hotel. 

He sees the keyfob David used to call the elevator last night hanging from a hook by the front door. A fifteen hundred dollar keyfob. The thought alone makes him a little nauseous, but he’s not getting back in here without it. It occurs to him that even if he didn’t mind the idea of waking David up to let him back in, thus alerting him to the fact that he’d left in the first place, he doesn’t have his phone number. 

He checks his phone again even though only a couple minutes have passed. With a fifteen minute subway ride each way, he can make it back in an hour if he takes the fastest shower he’s ever taken in his life. He peeks into David’s bedroom for any signs that he’s about to wake up, but finds him in the exact same position he’d left him, now with the sound of light snoring coming from somewhere under the pile of blankets that he appears to have cocooned himself in. 

He’ll definitely still be asleep in an hour. And if he’s not, he’ll just think Patrick fled in a moment of gay panic and took his very expensive keyfob with him. Perfect.

**

**Patrick: stevie**

**Patrick: are you awake?**

**Stevie: patrick**

**Stevie: no**

Patrick stops in the middle of the sidewalk to roll his eyes and then goes back to typing.

**Patrick: something happened last night**

**Stevie: you made out with the statue of liberty at midnight?**

**Stevie: always knew she was loose.**

**Patrick: no. I slept with a guy.**

**Stevie: slept with as in…**

**Patrick: …**

**Stevie: oh my god**

**Stevie: omg omg omg omg omg omg**

**Patrick: yeah**

**Stevie: OMG**

**Patrick: is that the only thing you have to say?**

**Stevie: idk. no ones ever texted me just to let me know they slept with a dude**

**Stevie: except for my cousin denise, but it was because they forgot to use a condom and she needed me to get her plan b**

**Stevie: im guessing you dont need me to get you plan b**

**Patrick: i do not**

**Patrick: what would you say if I was just one of your girlfriends? like if sleeping with a guy was just a normal everyday thing for me**

**Stevie: i dont have any girlfriends**

**Patrick: pretend that you do**

**Stevie: ummmmmm**

**Stevie: how big was it?**

**Patrick: you’re the worst**

His phone buzzes, this time with a call instead of a text. He slides his thumb up to answer.

“You should know better than to turn to me for emotional support,” Stevie says flatly.

“Oh no, I’m well aware. I wasn’t actually looking for emotional support, I just really needed to tell somebody.”

“Aww, and I was the first person you wanted to share this with?”

“Well it was either you or Ray, so…”

“I know you just went through a life-changing experience, so I’m going to let that one go.”

“How magnanimous of you,” Patrick laughs.

“Hey, I’m here for you. So how was it?”

“What, his dick?”

“No! Well, yeah, but no! The whole thing. Where’d you even meet this guy? What’s his name? How big was it?” She slips the last one in like Patrick won’t notice.

He walks past a group of Russian grannies bundled against the cold and realizes this is probably not a conversation he wants to be having over the phone, let alone in public. He catches sight of an empty park bench, not that there’s really a park in front of it so much as a five by five square of grass for dogs to pee on, but it’s as private as he can get right now.

“Do you mind the cliff notes version? I promise you can do a whole official debrief thing when I get home.”

“Ugh, fine, just tell me.”

“His name is David Rose, I met him when we got trapped in an elevator at my hotel last night. We got out after midnight and he invited me back to his place, which is roughly the size of your entire motel by the way and probably costs a small fortune, and then we…” 

There were too many options for how to describe it. Screwed, banged, sucked, fucked, had a sexual awakening (okay, that last one might have only applied to one of them). 

“Fucked like rabbits?” Stevie offers.

“Sure, something like that.”

He hears Stevie squeal on the other end of the line, a noise he did not know she was capable of making. “So?” she asks, coming back from her little outburst.

“So what?” Patrick dodges like he doesn’t know exactly what she's asking.

“So how was the sex? How was it with a guy? I mean, I know what it’s like in general. I mean how was it for you?”

“Fucking incredible.” He’s surprised by how quick the words leave his mouth.

“Oh God, I should not be having this conversation in the middle of a dry spell.”

“Stevie, I haven’t had sex in over _a year_. And it turns out all the sex I was having up until that point was profoundly unsatisfying.”

“Turns out? Like it wasn’t super obvious at the time?”

“It’s not like I had anything else to compare it to!”

“Okay, okay, fair enough. So does that mean that you’re…” she trails off, leaving him to decide how he wants that sentence to end.

“Gay?” No point in beating around the bush now.

“Yeah. Or just, you know, not entirely straight?”

“Oh I think it’s safe to say that I am very much not straight.”

He has to hold the phone away from his ear as the squealing starts up again. 

“You’re acting like you didn’t already know this,” he says.

“Well it wasn’t like we talked about it. We just kind of talked about everything _but_ it. Which is fine, you needed time to figure your shit out.”

“Yeah, well, safe to say it’s been figured out.”

There’s a long pause on the line and for a second Patrick is worried the call dropped. Then he hears Stevie clear her throat.

“I’m really happy for you Patrick,” she says, her voice sounding thicker than it did before. “Like, sincerely. Which is not a normal state of being for me, so you know I really mean it.” Patrick smiles and remembers what David claimed as the unofficial Rose family motto. He has a feeling that he and Stevie would get along. Not that they were ever going to meet. 

“Thank you Stevie. I know how deeply uncomfortable saying that made you.”

“The things I do for friends,” she laughs, and he swears he can hear a small sniffle too. “So wait, are you still at his place right now?”

Patrick watches as a Rottweiler produces a turd roughly the size of the Jack Russell it’s sharing the grass with and takes that as his cue to leave. “Uh no, not exactly.”

“Well unless his apartment exists in a weird vortex where time and space have no meaning, you’re either there or you’re not.”

“I sort of swiped his key so I could run back to my hotel for a change of clothes and get back before he wakes up, but the longer I walk the more I’m wondering if maybe I should have just left the key? Like, what if this was just a regular old one night stand for him and the proper etiquette would have been to leave and, you know, not rob him?” 

He doesn't realize how worried he is about that possibility until he says it out loud. Saying it aloud has made it profoundly real and profoundly unpleasant to think about.

“Umm, okay, wow. That’s a lot. I mean, the good news is that I don’t think that really counts as robbery. If you don’t go back he’ll probably have to change his locks, which sucks, but it’s not like you ran off with his family jewels.”

“Any other apartment and you would probably be right, but in this case me not returning the key would run him about fifteen hundred dollars.”

“Fuck off!”

“Trust me, I know. Something to do with recalibrating the security system for the entire building.”

“So you’re telling me that if you don’t go back to his place, then sex with you will have cost him fifteen hundred dollars?”

Patrick cringes. He hadn’t thought about it like that. And of course Stevie _would_ think about it like that.

“Ummm...basically, yeah.”

“God, he could have hired like, two _really_ nice escorts for that price.”

“Okay, so glad I called you Stevie. Knew I could turn to you for support. I’m going to go ahead and throw myself in the river now.” He’s only half joking. 

“Wait, wait, wait, don’t kill yourself yet. We’ll call that option B.”

“There’s an option A?”

“Yeah, you go to your hotel, take a shower, change your clothes, then go back to his apartment and fuck him again.”

“Brilliant.” He’s being sarcastic but it’s not like the thought hasn’t crossed his mind. He rounds the corner and sees the subway stop he and David came out of last night.

“I guess you could skip the last part if you’re really not feeling it, but if you have to go back there anyway then you may as well.”

“Much as I hate to admit it you may have a point.”

“You _hate_ to admit it?”

“You know what I mean. Listen I’m about to lose you, I’m getting on the subway.”

“Wait, one more question!’

He stops at the top of the stairwell emblazoned with the words **Hudson Tunnels**. “Yeah?”

“On a scale of medium sized carrot to full grown eggplant - ”

“Goodbye Stevie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thing about your brain staying half awake is actually true according to NPR.


	11. Red flags

David usually prefers waking up alone. He is no one’s definition of a morning person, and the ideal start to his day is one in which he doesn’t have to interact with another human being before noon. It’s usually not hard for him to accomplish given that he sets his own hours at the gallery. It just requires that one night stands to be exactly that: one night. Not one night plus two to three hours the next morning. 

Once the sex was over, most of them took the hint to make themselves scarce. Lines like ‘I have to get a really early start tomorrow’ and ‘we should totally do this again sometime’ were usually enough to make it clear that they shouldn’t expect to get back into bed with him. 

And then there was Patrick. 

Patrick had fallen asleep within minutes of getting David off. He laid on the bed, naked and spent and beautiful, while David waited for his instincts to kick in. The ones that tell him that it’d be easier to get him up and out now than it would be in the morning. That if he waits until tomorrow to do it, Patrick will probably find some excuse to hang around. He seems like the kind of person who would offer to make David breakfast and then start raiding his cabinets willy-nilly like it isn’t a total invasion of privacy.

Or maybe he’d want to go for round two as soon as he wakes up, forcing David to pretend that the first thing he wants when he wakes up is morning breath and a dick in his face instead of another hour of sleep.

Patrick didn’t actually strike him as the type to do that, but sometimes he found that people who spend most of their lives in the closet will go through this weird mid-life puberty that turns them into horned up little teenagers all over again once they come out. After all, the sex had been pretty great. He supposed he couldn’t blame him if he wanted a repeat performance.

But the instincts never kicked in. He stared over at the man who had just given him a grade-fucking-A orgasm, and the only thought that occurred to him was:

_I should get him a blanket, he’ll probably be cold when he wakes up._

When he wakes up.

_When he wakes up._

He was staying then. Because you don’t put cashmere blankets over people that you plan to kick out before the sun rises. Well, you can, it just sends a _very_ mixed message.

David had pulled the blanket out of the linen closet, plus his favorite knitted wool throw for himself, and laid it over Patrick’s sleeping form. He shouldn’t have encouraged it. He should have shaken Patrick awake, thanked him for a lovely time, and paid for his Uber home. Even if it meant paying surge pricing.

The only time David doesn’t like waking up alone is when he doesn’t expect to. That's why, when he wakes to find the left side of his bed empty, his first feeling is one of confusion instead of relief.

He reaches out a hand to feel over the space where Patrick had drifted off the night before and finds it cold to the touch. He hasn’t just gotten out of bed then. David glances at the clock on his nightstand - 7:30 AM. How early did Patrick get up? He couldn’t have slept more than a few hours.

David slides down to the end of the bed, tossing off the wool throw. He feels his left foot land on the hardwood and his right on something soft. He reaches down and comes up holding a pair of navy blue boxers. Patrick's underwear is still here; maybe he didn't leave after all. 

He pads out into the hallway and finds the bathroom door wide open and the room itself empty. Same goes for the closet and the laundry room, which also happens to be missing Patrick’s jacket. The sight of the empty dryer instills a sinking feeling in David’s stomach that he finds all too familiar. By the time he makes his way to the kitchen, he no longer expects to find Patrick waiting there with a cup of coffee in his hand. 

Patrick, he concludes, has left the building. Only his underwear remains.

David sighs, resigning himself to a fate that he probably should have expected. For all he knows Patrick is on a plane back to Ontario right now, ready to take back his ex-fiancee and pop out a couple kids, having gotten his one night of bi-curiosity out of his system. He turns to go back to his bedroom, determined to salvage the morning with at least four more hours of sleep when something catches his eye. Or rather _doesn’t_ catch his eye.

The hook where he always - _always_ \- leaves his keyfob is empty. He’d left it in his pants’ pockets a couple of times when he’d first moved in, and quickly decided his tendency towards forgetfulness was not worth the subsequent panic attacks it caused. After the third incident in as many weeks he’d gone straight out and purchased the hook that now sat empty next to his front door.

_Shit...he wouldn’t,_ he tells himself.

Then where’s the key?

_It might not have been him._

But he remembers hanging up the key as soon as he got home last night. 

_Patrick isn’t the kind of guy who would do that._

Except he’s only known him for less than twelve hours. What if this is _exactly_ the kind of guy he is?

_...shit._

  
  


**

“What’s wrong?” Alexis answers the phone.

“Hello to you too, and happy new year.”

“What’s wrong David?”

“Why do you assume something is wrong? I said I’d call you today, can’t it just be to say hi?”

“You _never_ call me just to say hi. And because the last time we talked I had just saved you from a broken down elevator - _you’re welcome by the way_ \- and then you got all cryptic about who you were with and hung up on me.”

Oh yeah, he had done that. “Okay, fine! Something is wrong.”

“I knew it,” she gloated. “What happened?”

“Ugh,” he groans, already wondering if calling her was a bad idea. “It’s my fault. I did something I swore I’d never do again.”

“Did you accidentally book tickets to Palm Springs during Dinah Shore weekend again?”

He shudders at the thought. “No, I learned that lesson the hard way.”

“Slept on poly-cotton blend sheets?”

“No.”

“Fell asleep after you put on your exfoliator but before you moisturized?”

Every year he asks her for ideas for their mother’s birthday gift and she’s got nothing. Ask her to list his possible mistakes and she’s a bottomless fucking well. “No, and can you please stop guessing?!”

“What is it then?”

“...I slept with a straight guy.”

“David.”

“I know.”

“ _David_.”

“I know!”

“This was the guy from the elevator?”

“Yes.”

“Millions of people in New York and you get stuck in an elevator with a guy looking to cheat on his wife with another man?”

“He doesn’t have a wife,” he admits. 

“Fiancée?”

“Well, no, not anymore. They just broke up last year. It’s why he was in the city in the first place, he said he didn’t want to risk her trying to get back together with him over the holidays.”

There’s a long pause on the other end of the line before Alexis speaks again. “I’m confused.”

“So just your natural state of being then?”

“David, you’re the one who called me!”

He bites back the urge to tell her that might have been a tactical error on his part. “...fair enough. What are you confused about?”

“Well if he doesn’t have a wife and he’s going out of his way to _not_ have a girlfriend, then what makes you think he’s straight?”

“Because he left! That’s what those guys do, they leave! They slink away like the - the - the - little slinkers that they are!”

“Slinkers?”

He ignores the question.

“He got up at some ungodly hour in the morning and did the walk of shame back to his shitty hotel with its deathtrap of an elevator. And not only that, but he took my apartment key with him, which means he’s probably going to come back later tonight and rob me!”

“You mean you didn’t kick him out last night?”

“That is so not the point!”

“I know, it’s just...interesting.” 

He hates it when she calls things ‘interesting’. Sort of like how she calls things ‘cute’ or ‘super fun’ that aren’t actually cute or any degree of fun. Interesting could mean literally anything when it came to Alexis.

“No it’s not. It was a nice thing that is now serving as a reminder of why I don’t do nice things.”

“So let me see if I’ve got this straight...no pun intended,” she giggles.

“Suck on a tailpipe please.”

“Maybe later,” she brushes him off. “Okay, so you get stuck in an elevator with a cute…”

She waits for him to dispute the assumption, but he really can’t.

“Yes, he was cute,” he agrees begrudgingly.

“Right, a cute tourist who’s visiting from out of town just so he can avoid a woman who wants a relationship with him. Some flirting happens, some heavy eye contact - ”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“I once got stuck in an elevator in the Burj Khalifa with half the Qatari national soccer team. Believe me, I know. So anyway, you get out of the elevator and you invite him back to your place. You both get some drinks in you - ”

“Actually we didn’t have anything to drink.”

“You didn’t want to offer him some liquid courage? A little lubricant to help ease his way out of the closet?”

“Ugh, please never say the word _lubricant_ ever again. And no. I mean, I offered, but he said no.” David remembers being a little taken aback by Patrick turning down a drink. He’s found that most guys who have never really fooled around with another man before tend to need at least a shot before they stop pretending they don’t know why David invited them back to his place, and why they agreed to come.

“Okay then,” she says slowly, like she doesn’t entirely believe him. “So you slept together, and it was good?”

“No comment.”

“That means it was good. And then you let him spend the night.”

“You don’t know that!” he insists.

“You wouldn’t be this worked up about him if the sex was bad.”

“I am not -,” he stops, takes a deep breath. He can hear himself edging towards Moira levels of hysteria in his voice and he doesn’t want to give Alexis the satisfaction. In a much calmer voice he tells her, “He fell asleep, it seemed rude to wake him.”

“That’s never stopped you before. You love kicking people out of your apartment. Sometimes I think you invite people over just so you can make them leave.”

“Now you’re just making me sound like a sociopath.” He definitely shouldn’t have called her.

“And the only reason you believe he’s straight is that he dipped out on you before the sun came up, like all the other guys have?”

He definitely has more reasons than that. He just can’t seem to remember any of the right now. “I’m just saying, if the closet fits,” he mutters.

“Alright, I hate to say it - well, I don’t _hate_ to - but I think you’re wrong.”

“About what?”

“Everything. I don’t think he’s straight, I don’t think you sent him sprinting back into the closet, and I don’t think he stole your keys.”

“He did though. Because my keys are gone, and so is he, ergo he stole my keys.”

“Maybe he just went out to get coffee and he’ll be right back.”

“He could have made coffee here,” he argues.

“Okay, well first off, no one knows how to use your espresso maker. It’s got like a million buttons on it and the instructions are in Italian.”

“I had it imported!”

“And two, if he had somehow managed to figure out your coffee machine, you’d be calling me to complain about him going through your kitchen cabinets instead.”

She isn’t wrong. He doesn’t want to admit it, but she isn’t wrong, and it’s pretty fucking annoying.

“I don’t understand how you think you’ve got this guy figured out when you’ve never even met him.”

“I don’t need to meet him, I know you.” She says it like it’s the most painfully obvious thing in the world.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Don’t be mad - ”

“You only say that when you’re about to say something really bitchy.”

“ - but you have this habit of ignoring people’s faults while you’re dating them, and then being _so_ hyper-critical of them as soon as you break up.”

He doesn’t even know where to begin explaining how wrong she is. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Remember when you were dating Graciela, the spin instructor that was always complaining about her allergies? And then you texted me, like, five minutes after you broke up to tell me she was actually just doing a ton of coke _all_ the time?”

Fucking Graciela. That was the last time he ever dated any type of fitness trainer. He doesn't trust anyone who eats that much kale. “What’s your point?”

“Pretend for a second that Patrick didn’t take your keys. That you woke up and he told you that last night was a mistake and he never wanted to see you again.”

“You know,” David sighs, “for some reason I thought talking to you would actually make me feel better.”

“Shush David! Just go with it. Imagine that was your morning, and you were calling me right now to bitch about all the things that actually sucked about him. What would you say?”

She wants him to list Patrick’s faults. He can do that. There had to have been some red flags last night. Flags that were just really difficult to see through the haze of great sex.

“He wore a webbed belt.”

“Is that a crime?”

“It should be.”

He can hear her sigh on the other end of the line. “Fine, webbed belt, strike one. What else?”

What else? This shouldn’t be hard. Everyone has faults. Why is this hard?

It’s too much like the mind trick where someone tells you not to think of white elephants, so of course all you can think about is white elephants. She asked him to not think of any of Patrick’s positive traits, and now all David can think about is the stuff he liked about him. And there was a lot he liked.

His hands. How confidently they’d slid into his hair and pulled tight, but not too tight. Just enough to move David’s head exactly where he wanted it.

His smile. How it crinkled his eyes when he made fun of David and how it came and went so easily, even in the middle of sex

His lips. How he’d chewed on them nervously when he and David were about to kiss and how they'd felt wrapped around his cock. 

His honesty. How he’d answered every question David had asked of him and how he’d told him what he’d wanted in the kind of situation where other men would have been terrified to do the same.

Then he remembers that he’s in the middle of accusing Patrick of theft, so maybe he shouldn’t be praising his honesty quite so hard just now.

“He, uh...he was dumb enough to think Times Square on New Year’s Eve would be a good idea.” It’s a reach, and he knows it.

“That doesn’t make him a bad person, that just makes him a tourist,” she scoffs. “Do you have anything to complain about that isn’t fashion or travel related?”

David thinks hard, wracking his brain to think of a single answer that might satisfy her, something that should have served as a warning that he’d be waking up alone and out fifteen hundred bucks.

“So I’m going to take this silence as a no,” she finally says.

For one crazy second he thinks that he should have just called his mother. She would have immediately turned the conversation back to herself but she also wouldn’t have picked apart David’s anxieties like this.

“The fact remains that he’s gone and so is my very expensive building key,” he points out, staring at the empty key hook from his kitchen. “So if you’ve got another theory as to what he’s doing out in the city with my key and no underwear, I’m all ears.”

“Wait, you kept his underwear? As like...a sex trophy?”

“I didn’t _keep_ his underwear. They must have gotten kicked under the bed and he left without them.”

“Well then he’s definitely coming back.”

“For a five dollar pair of Hanes?”

“No. My theory is that he woke up really early, couldn’t get back to sleep, and after looking for his underwear and being really intimidated by your toilet, he just decided to go back to his hotel for a shower and a change of clothes.”

“That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.”

“Mmkay, that’s coming from the guy who thought frosted tips were a good idea in high school.”

“Everyone did!”

“Yeah, and you all looked like Mark McGrath. I stand by my theory.”

“And if you’re wrong? If he really did steal my key and I never see him again?”

“Then...I’ll be on the next flight to New York.”

That brings him up short. Alexis never changes her travel plans for anyone but herself or a very wealthy hookup; certainly not for family.

“Why would you do that?”

“I don’t know,” she says a little defensively. “Isn’t that what families do for each other? Like...be there?”

“Not this family,” David points out.

“Would you actually want Mom and Dad there right now?”

“God no!”

“So you wouldn’t want me to come either?”

“I...no. I mean yes. You could come. If you wanted.”

“Okay. Fine. But I’m making you take me to Nobu.”

He should have expected her offer to come with strings.

“So how long should I give him?” he asks. 

“I don’t know, noon maybe? It could take him a while if he walks but any longer than that…” she trails off, probably not wanting to point out the obvious.

“Then he ditched me,” David finished for her. 

“Most likely.” He appreciates that she has the decency to sound sad about it.

“Great," he sighs. "I’m going to go now. I have to pick out two different outfits now depending on how my day turns out.”

“Happy blacks and sad blacks?”

She really does know him. “I’ll talk to you later,” he says, and ends the call.

David drops his head onto the cool granite of his kitchen island, and debates how pathetic it would be if he just stayed there until noon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I don't know if you've all seen last nights episode yet so spoilers if you haven't, but I totally beat the show to the weird toilet joke in my last chapter. I'm going to make sure this goes in my obituary under my very short list of accomplishments.
> 
> And apologies if David was a bit of a dick this chapter after being so sweet with Patrick the night before. This is 'damaged goods' David who never really had to work out his trust issues before.


	12. You're doing it wrong

Patrick takes the stairs two at a time when he reaches his hotel, bypassing the elevator for obvious reasons. He clocks what he suspects is the fastest shower he’s ever taken, and throws on the first clean clothes he finds in his bag. He checks the time every two minutes, and prays that David is a heavy sleeper. 

He considers taking a taxi back to David’s place, only to realize that he has no idea what the address is. He knows he can backtrack his way there from the subway, but if he gets into a cab he doesn’t think ‘shiny building by the river’ is really going to cut it as far as directions go. So he starts his march back to the subway, the cold wind biting at his cheeks, and takes a quick detour into the first deli he sees.

**

Patrick worries he took a wrong turn at some point, but then he rounds a corner and David’s building comes into view, and he breathes a sigh of relief.

The front door, which had been mercifully unmanned when he’d left earlier, is once again occupied by Stefan, of imposing physique and vaguely eastern European accent. He wonders if he’ll recognize him from last night. 

Stefan eyes him with a neutral expression as he approaches the door, making no move to open it for him. Patrick comes to an awkward halt, shifting the paper bag in his arms to dig for David’s keyfob. He pulls it out and presents it to the doorman, who remains unmoving in front of the entrance.

“Umm, hi. It’s Stefan, right?”

Stefan says nothing, but grants him a single nod. 

“Great!” he replies with false brightness. “You saw me last night, I think? I came here with David?”

“Mr. Rose has many guests.”

The statement throws Patrick a little. “He does? I mean, of course he does. I’m sure he’s a very...popular guy.” He’s starting to think there’s a very real chance that he’s not getting in this building. “Well, I just ran out to grab us some breakfast, and I took David’s key, as you can see.” He gives the fob a little wave.

“Most leave early.”

“Sorry, who?”

“Mr. Rose’s guests. They leave, very late at night or very early morning, and do not come back.” He opens the door for an approaching resident, putting his body between Patrick and the entrance as he does so. When he turns back around, he stares out into the street as though he never spoke.

“I uh, I don’t think I under - ”

“You have come back.” He shifts his cool gaze back to Patrick.

“Uh-huh.” Patrick still can’t shake the feeling that he’s being analyzed by someone capable of killing him with a spoon should the situation call for it. “Well, like I said, I just ran out to get us some food. David’s probably wondering what’s taking me so long, so…”

He inclines his head towards the door and wonders if Stefan is buying a word of this.

Stefan gives him a final once over, and concludes his review with a stiff, “Hmmph.”

Patrick isn’t really sure if that’s a good grunt or a bad one, but Stefan steps aside and holds the door open for him. Patrick hurries through before he can change his mind and start looking for a spoon.

**

He’s about to slide the key into the deadbolt when he hears the sound of someone talking on the other side of the door. He recognizes David’s voice but it’s hard to make out what he’s saying. He holds his breath, straining to listen, and he swears he hears the words ‘ditched me’.

_Oh shit. He thinks I left this morning. Like, left for real._

_Unless he’s on the phone with a dermatologist right now and he actually said ‘itched me’._

_Because that’s a thing people say._

The voice goes quiet on the other side of the door, and Patrick realizes he can’t stand outside of David’s apartment forever. He pushes in the key and swings the door open. 

David is seated at the island in his kitchen, and practically bolts out of his chair when he sees Patrick. Patrick freezes while David throws a hand on his hip in a poor attempt at looking casual, as though that little jump-scare hadn’t just happened. 

“Hey,” Patrick says slowly, dragging out the word. He wonders why the hell the English language doesn’t have a specific greeting for people you just slept with but don’t actually know all that well. He’s never really needed one before, but it would be _really_ useful right about now.

“Hi,” David replies, an odd squeaky quality to his voice. He sets his phone face down on the counter.

A long silence stretches out between them.

“I brought bagels - ”

“I found your underwear - ”

“What kind - ”

“Wait, where - ”

They both stop talking over each other at the same time and fall silent, both waiting for the other person to start over.

“Go ahead,” Patrick offers.

“No, no. Please,” David insists.

Patrick drops the paper bag he’s carrying on to the island. “I, uh, I went out. For bagels. And also to grab a shower and some clean clothes from my hotel. But mainly the bagels. Sorry, did you say you found my underwear?”

“Ummm, yeah,” David answers, eyeing the bag curiously. He clears his throat and sounds a little more present when he next speaks. “Yes. They were under my, uh...they were under the bed.”

“Oh, right. That makes sense.” Patrick lets out an awkward little chuckle. “I guess I wasn’t really paying attention when they...you know. When they came off.” He remembers David’s face looking up at him from next to his crotch, his finger sliding along the waistband of his boxers, asking him for permission to take them off. His cock twitches at the memory and he struggles to focus on the conversation he and David are stumbling their way through now. “I borrowed your keys,” he says, giving them a little wave and dropping them next to the bagels. “Sorry if you thought I’d...you know. Run off with them, or whatever.”

Christ this is awkward. Why is this so awkward? The sex was easy compared to this. 

“Oh, uh...I didn’t think that. I only just woke up, like, a minute ago, so I didn’t really have time to think anything.”

Patrick knows what he heard from outside David’s front door, but he wants to let him save face.

“Okay, that’s, uh...that’s good then.”

“You could have taken a shower here you know,” David says.

“I know,” Patrick replies quickly. “I thought about it, but the whole missing boxers thing meant I had to go back to the hotel anyway, and all my toiletries and stuff were there. Plus…” he trails off, not sure how David will take his next thought.

“What?”

“Umm...don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but you just sort of struck me as the kind of guy who has very strong opinions about people borrowing your things without asking. I really didn’t want to wake you over some shampoo.”

David’s mouth opens and shuts several times in quick succession, giving his appearance an oddly fish-like quality. 

“This is the part where you want to say that that’s not true and I totally could have taken some shampoo, but you’re actually _really_ glad that I didn’t touch the bottle with all the French writing on it in your shower.” Patrick worries briefly that he might be making some pretty big assumptions about someone he really doesn’t know all that well, but then he sees David’s lips pinch together primly and he knows his instincts were right. 

“So that is actually _very_ expensive clarifying shampoo,” he says, squinting his eyes and clenching his fists at just the apparent thought of someone helping themselves to his products. “And yes, I did have it imported from France, so your impression was not entirely inaccurate.”

“David,” Patrick says, trying to sound serious despite how much he wants to laugh at David’s expression. “It doesn’t matter if it was a bottle of Old Spice, I still wouldn’t touch your stuff without asking.”

“Oh God, could you imagine - ”

Patrick cocks an eyebrow and David stops mid-sentence. 

“You, uh...you use Old Spice don’t you?”

“Yup,” Patrick replies. “One of those three-in-ones actually. Shampoo, conditioner, and body wash all in one bottle.”

David pulls a face like Patrick just told him he bathes in raw sewage. 

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

Patrick smiles at him. “Can I offer you a bagel to help you through this trying time?”

David shoots him a glare but then his eyes slide over to the bag.

“I didn’t know if you had a favorite kind so I just got one of everything.”

The sourpuss expression on David’s face finally cracks and he reaches out to slide the bag closer to him. “You’re in luck,” he says, peeking in. “One of everything is my favorite kind.”

**

“You’re doing it wrong,” David says.

“David, it’s a bagel. There is no wrong way to eat it.”

“And yet you’ve managed to find one.”

Patrick sighs and drops his bagel and the butter knife he’s holding on to his plate.

“Is this because I said no to your fancy cream cheese?”

David sets down his own plate and reaches over to flick on the broiler of his oven. He waves his hands at Patrick in a shooing motion until he takes the hint and steps away from the counter. Then he picks up the knife and starts depositing neat little pats of butter around each side of Patrick’s egg bagel.

“This has nothing to do with you turning down my chipotle asiago blend cream cheese, no matter how much I paid per ounce.”

“Really?” Patrick asks skeptically.

“Really. I get it, you’re not a cream cheese person, that’s fine. All bagel topping preferences are valid.”

“Do I have to officially come out as a butter lover? Is there a parade I can march in?”

“Don’t be smart,” David says, pointing the butter knife at him with faux menace. He pulls out a baking sheet and places down the now butter topped slices. He slides it into the broiler and sets a timer for two minutes. “Butter on a bagel is fine, but you were putting it on there all wrong. You can’t spread cold butter, no matter how hard you try. All you end up with is torn up bread and and lumps of butter coated in crumbs. It’s much better to lay them down on the bread first and then toast them. The butter spreads and infuses itself throughout the entire slice as it melts.”

Patrick wonders if anyone has ever given this much thought to bagel toppings in the history of mankind, or if he just got picked up by someone with a one in seven billion level of dedication to breakfast foods.

He walks over to where David is leaning against the counter opposite the broiler and casually plants a hand on either side of him, trapping him in place. 

He’s been cautious up until now, waiting for David to give him some kind of sign that last night hadn’t been a one time thing. That he could reach out and touch him or even kiss him if he felt like it. But what if David’s waiting for the same signs from him? What if they wait too long until they’re both convinced the other one isn’t interested in anything more than breakfast?

“So you’re telling me I’ve been buttering bread wrong my whole life?”

David smirks down at him. “Yup.” He pops his lips on the ‘p’. “Guess you’re learning a lot about yourself today.”

Well if that isn’t a sign, Patrick doesn’t know what is. 

He catches David’s lips with his and he can still feel the smile on them. He’d meant it to be a quick kiss, just testing the waters, but then he feels David’s hand slip around his back and pull him closer. 

He runs his hands up to David’s chest, enjoying the feel of his muscles dancing and twitching underneath his shirt. He opens his mouth enough to grab hold of David’s bottom lip and tug it lightly with his teeth, just like David had done to him the night before. David’s arm tightens in response, pulling Patrick flush against his body. Patrick bites down, just a little, and David groans into his mouth.

Patrick pulls back, amused and a little proud of the reaction the kiss had garnered him. “So teeth are good I take it?” he teases lightly.

David’s tongue swipes over his bottom lip like he’s tasting Patrick there. The sight of it sends blood rushing down to Patrick’s dick. “Very good,” he says. He’s leaning down for another kiss when the timer on the broiler goes off. He stops only an inch or so away from Patrick’s mouth, close enough for Patrick to feel the heat of his breath when he says, “Almost as good as a hot buttered bagel.”

He moves Patrick aside to check the broiler, and Patrick seriously considers arguing that he prefers his bagels burnt anyway.

**

“Fine.” Patricks drops a napkin on to his now empty plate. “I was doing it wrong.”

David’s smile takes over his entire face. He tilts his head back in glee. “Sorry, one more time?”

Patrick grabs the napkin and pelts it at David, who bats it away lightly. 

“You were right,” Patrick admits, knowing what words David was searching for. 

David gives a deeply satisfied looking nod. “Mmm, there it is.”

Patrick rinses their plates and loads them into the dishwasher, then turns to find David studying at him from his barstool. ‘What?”

“Nothing,” David says. “Just thinking.”

“About last night?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Regrets?” Patrick doesn’t want to ask but he has to. Even after they’d kissed, he could still feel a niggling worm of doubt at the back of his mind that seemed determined to convince him that David was just being polite until he could find a way to get Patrick out the door.

David looks at him strangely and for an awful moment Patrick thinks he’s going to say yes. ”That’s usually my line,” he says instead. 

Oh. Okay. That’s not a yes. It’s sad, and makes Patrick’s heart hurt a little, but it’s not a yes.

“You bring home a lot of Canadian tourists going through a quarter life sexual crisis?”

“Quarter life? You think you’re going to live to be a hundred and twenty years old?”  
  


Patrick shrugs. “I'm an optimist.”

David rolls his eyes, but looks more amused than annoyed. “To answer your question, no, not a lot. But...enough.”

“Enough for what?”

David crosses his arms and leans against the counter. “Enough to know that most of them don’t wake up the next morning ready to shout about their newly discovered sexuality from the rooftops. Most of them don’t stay long enough to wake up here at all.”

Patrick doesn’t understand. For all the doubts he’s had this morning - about going back to his hotel, about whether David would want him to come back, about if he should kiss him - he hasn’t had a single one about whether sleeping with David last night had been the right thing to do. Nothing had ever felt more right to him in his entire life. Even if David had woken up and decided he never wanted to see Patrick again, it still wouldn’t have changed that for him.

“You mean they decide that they didn’t really like being with a guy?”

“No,” David says with a sigh. “No, I think most of them like that part just fine. It’s really easy to like. You know, _in the moment._ It’s after that the regret kicks in. They start to think about all the implications this could have for their lives.”

“Implications?”

“You know, telling their friends and family, possibly ending current relationships. The occasional good ol’ fashioned disowning. Some of them...I don’t know. I think some of them are just afraid of change.”

“I told my friend.” Patrick wasn’t planning on saying that, but the words are out of his mouth before he can stop himself. 

David’s brows shoot up like they’re trying to run away from the rest of his face. “Oh you did, did you?” He’s making no effort to hide his amusement and Patrick can feel his face go red.

“Yes,” he admits in a small voice.

“And what _exactly_ did you tell this friend?”

Patrick looks at him with a silent plea to not make him do this, but David just stares right back like he has all the time in the world to wait for his answer. 

“Christ,” Patrick groans and buries his face in his hands. “I told her that I went home with a guy whose shoes cost more than my entire wardrobe.”

“Okay, well that says a lot more about your wardrobe than it does about my shoes. What else?”

“That we had sex.”

“Really?”

“Good sex,” he adds. “That we had really good sex. There, happy now?”

“Delighted actually. And what did your friend say?”

“She said a lot of things,” he answers cryptically. “Mainly she wanted to know how big your dick is.”

David’s jaw drops a little and Patrick feels some of his embarrassment slip away. “Yeah, Stevie doesn’t have much of a filter. You two actually have a lot in common.”

“So what did you tell her?” David asks in an overly casual voice, like he isn’t deeply invested in Patrick's answer. 

“The truth.”

David gives him a tight smile. “The truth being…”

“That you’re the biggest guy I’ve ever been with.”

It takes a beat for David to process exactly what he had said. Patrick can see precise moment when it clicks into place in David’s eyes. They narrow into slits and he jabs a finger into Patrick’s shoulder. “You’re a prick, you know that?”

Patrick rubs at his shoulder like it’s a mortal wound. “What?” he laughs. “Technically speaking you’re also the smallest guy I’ve ever been with, should I have told her that instead?”

The question earns him another jab, but now David has a reluctant smile on his face. “Did you even call this girl or was that whole thing just a set up for the joke? Please tell me no one would actually name their daughter Stevie.”

“I believe her real name is Stephanie, but she’d kill you if you ever tried to call her that.”

“Wait, you’re telling me she _chose_ the name Stevie?”

Patrick shrugs. “It suits hers.”

He fold his arms and leans back against the counter next to David, who stares at him, waiting for an answer to his other question. 

“No, I wasn’t just setting up a joke. I really did call her.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to,” he says simply. “And because I think she knew I was gay before I was even sure about it, not that she ever really pushed the topic. Figured if I was going to tell anyone, it should be her. ” 

David chews lightly at his bottom lip and his fingers drum out a nervous beat on the counter. “And you are? Sure about it, I mean.”

It takes a decent amount of self-control for Patrick to not reach out and start kissing David again. It would probably answer his question well enough, but it felt important that he actually say it out loud. “Yeah, I am. Very sure.”

David’s fingers go still, and Patrick knows he’s going to kiss him before David even starts to lean in. It’s soft and almost chaste, only lasting a few seconds. Patrick pulls back and smiles at him. “You really had to ask? The bagels and making out in your kitchen weren’t good enough signs?”

David shrugs. “I was just checking.” He captures Patrick’s lips again, and this time it’s distinctly less chaste than before. He moves in front of Patrick and slots his arms around him, trapping him against the counter as Patrick had done to him not long ago. Patricks reaches a hand up to David’s face, brushing it softly over his cheek before wrapping it around his neck and pulling him closer. 

Patrick sighs into David’s open mouth as his tongue slips past his lips. David presses him against the counter, and the feel of his cock hard and present against his hip makes every nerve in Patrick’s body spark. Just when he starts to debate whether he should reach down and help himself to it, David pulls away, leaving Patrick feeling dazed and wanting.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Nothing,” David says lightly, skimming a hand over Patrick’s arm. Goosebumps erupt along the trail his fingers weave against his skin. “I was just thinking about how much I need a shower right now.”

“Oh,” Patrick says, shaking his head clear. He wants to tell him that he really doesn’t mind if he doesn’t, but he realizes that David is probably as much of a clean freak about his body as he is about his wardrobe. “Umm, yeah - that’s fine. I can just wait out here while you - ”

“See, I was also thinking that maybe you should take one with me.”

The suggestion brings Patrick up short, a hard left turn from what he thought David was going to say. “Really?”

“Oh yes,” David replies solemnly, thought Patrick can see the corners of lips twitching. “I know you took one back at your hotel, but with that three-in-one stuff, who knows how clean you really got?”

Patrick laughs at David’s opportunism in taking a shot at his bargain choice in body wash.

“Good point,” he agrees. “Definitely want to be thorough. Cleanliness and godliness and all that.”

“Mmhmm,” David hums. He hooks a finger in Patrick’s front pocket and begins to walk backwards, pulling him towards the bathroom. “Except I don’t think they teach any of the things I want to do to you in church.”

**

David pushes Patrick up against the bathroom door as soon as it closes, his hands working their way under his shirt and digging into bare skin. Patrick can’t help the moan that bubbles up from his throat and into David’s mouth. David’s thin pajama pants do nothing to contain his erection, and Patrick does what he’d wanted to do in the kitchen and wraps his hand around through the soft black fabric. 

David immediately rolls his hips against Patrick’s hand and Patrick wonders if they’re even going to make it to the shower. David must have the same concern as he grabs hold of Patrick’s shirt and pulls it off of him in one swift motion and then does the same to his own. He reaches for Patrick’s belt and pauses for a moment with his fingers wrapped around the leather. 

“Sorry, not to kill the mood or anything, but is this the only belt you own?”

Patrick doesn’t understand how David could possibly be focused on his belt right now, beyond getting it off of him. “Umm, no?”

David lets out a breath. “Oh thank God. Okay where was I?” His fingers make quick work of the buckle and then undo the button of his jeans with a practiced flick. Patrick, realizing David is the only one doing the undressing, pushes his hands aside and grabs for his pajama bottoms. One pull of a drawstring and they slip off with ease, freeing his cock and making Patrick’s mind go momentarily blank. 

He doesn’t have many to compare it to, but he’s convinced David has the most beautiful cock in the world. He doesn’t know where it would fall on Stevie’s spectrum of phallic produce, but he does know that David is tall and broad and more than proportional in that regard. He wants to be able to take it down his throat the way David did to him last night, but he knows that isn’t going to happen without a substantial amount of practice.

_Two days won’t be enough_ , he thinks and then shoves the thought aside because the last thing he wants to be thinking about right now is time.

He reaches out a hand to touch David but he takes a step out of Patrick’s reach. “One sec,” he says, holding up a finger. “Just let me get the water warmed up.”

He turns around to reach into the shower and Patrick gets an absolutely fantastic view of his ass. His whole life, for reasons that are now abundantly clear, Patrick never really understood what his guy friends meant when they said they were ‘ass’ or ‘tits’ or ‘legs’ men. He recognized when girls were attractive, and he was never lying when he told Rachel she looked beautiful, but he never felt hyperfocused on any particular body part they possessed. 

Until now. Now, Patrick decides he’s an ass man. Specifically David’s ass. 

David turns around and catches Patrick’s eyes on their journey back to face level and a very pleased grin spreads across his face.

“Enjoying the view?”

Patrick kicks off his own jeans and strides across the room to where David stands in front of the shower door. “I was actually,” he says, slipping both of his hands around David’s waist to grab hold of what he had just been admiring. David opens his mouth to say something else but his words disappear into Patrick’s kiss. 

Patrick doesn’t know how long they stand embraced like that, but when he opens his eyes again the room is filled with steam. 

“We’re wasting water,” he points out.

David nods with an overly serious furrow to his brow. “Well then we should really get in there then. For the sake of the earth or...whatever.”

Patrick was right about how over-sized the shower was. He thinks you could probably fit the starting lineup for the Raptors in here if you really wanted to. Then he thinks that he needs to stop making sports analogies at inappropriate moments. 

There’s a low bench running along the far wall, the corner of which is stocked with a number of very small, and probably very expensive, bottles of bath and body products. And yes, a number of them were indeed written entirely in French. There’s also a second shower head jutting out from the wall in addition to the large rainfall feature he’d noticed earlier this morning.

The water temperature is just short of scalding, but Patrick doesn’t mind. As soon as he feels David's hands wrap around from behind him and pull him back into the hard wall of his body, all other sensations seem to slip away.

David’s mouth skates down the side of Patrick’s neck and suckles there lightly. The graze of his teeth against skin sends a shiver down Patrick’s spine, and he’s surprised to hear himself laughing.

David lets go of his neck. “Something funny?” he asks, his voice hot in Patrick’s ear.

“No, just wondering if you’re evening out your handiwork from last night.” He brings his hand up to touch the raspberry colored hickey on the other side of his neck. He feels David shift behind him to see what he’s talking about, and then his voice is in his ear again. “I don’t remember you complaining at the time.”

He drops a kiss on the bruise. “In fact, you seemed to enjoy the experience.”

He shifts back to Patrick’s other side and instead of resuming the work his mouth had started, he nuzzles the soft slope of Patrick’s shoulder. 

“It’s the stubble,” Patrick mutters, and David goes still.

“Sorry, the what?”

“Stubble,” Patrick repeats with a soft chuckle. He turns to face David and brushes his fingers along his chin. “My neck’s always been kind of a sensitive spot. I just never knew how much better it would feel with five o’clock shadow there for some extra…” He trails off, searching for the right words.

“Stimulation?” David suggests, and Patrick thinks it might be the sexiest word he’s ever heard in his life.

He pulls David’s face down to his in lieu of an actual answer. He allows David to back him into the wall and out of the heavy spray of the water. He sinks his hands into David’s hair, remembering how well he’d responded to that before, and isn’t prepared for the way David thrusts his hips against him in response. 

He reaches down for David’s cock, desperate to feel him, and it slides into his grasp. His hand slips over the head and skims down to the base, keeping his touch feather light. He does it once, twice, and on the third pass he grabs hold of the head and squeezes firmly. He feels David’s whole body tremble and decides then and there that he would do anything - _anything_ \- to get that kind of reaction from him again.

David ruts against his hand, seeking more of anything Patrick can give him. The only problem, they quickly discover, is that water makes for an absolutely piss poor lubricant. David pulls away long enough to grab a large amber bottle off the bench and hand it to Patrick. 

“What is this?” he asks, eyes searching the label.

“Coconut and honey body milk,” David replies. “It’s good for...well, lots of stuff.”

“And what exactly _is_ body milk?”

David looks at him like he doesn’t understand the question. “It’s body milk.”

“Yeah, no, I know that’s what it’s called. But, like, what _is_ it? Can you drink it?”

“No you don’t drink it! It’s milk _for your body._ It’s like a moisturizer, but thinner, with more slip.”

“Oh!” Patrick exclaims. “Why didn’t you say that to begin with?”

“Oh my god! Do you want me to define the proper use of every single product I keep in here, or do you want to make me come?”

Oh. _Oh._ Right. How could he forget?

“Umm, t-t-the second one, please. Definitely the second one.” God, he sounds like Rain Man.

David lets out an exasperated sign, but then he plants a searing kiss on Patrick’s lips. “You’re forgiven,” he says. “But only because you stammered.”

**

Patrick has never really considered the logistics of attempting to jerk off a dick that wasn’t his own. He’s never had to worry about angles or grip or even just the ability to move his hand with confidence. He wants to give this his full attention. He wants to get everything right. But then David starts kissing his neck again and all his concentration flies out the window. 

He doesn’t ask David to stop, but he forces himself not to get lost in the feel of David’s mouth on him. He fumbles for a second with the cap on the body milk, but finally manages to pop it off. He pours what is probably an overly generous amount of product into his hand - better too much then not enough being his theory - and sets it back on the bench. 

He reaches out for David and finds him hard and wanting. He finds his hand slips over him easily, and when he tightens his grip David bite down on his neck, hard. They both groan in unison at the respective sensations. 

Patrick works on building a slow but steady rhythm, working in a gentle squeeze of the head every few strokes. David’s lips have stopped moving against him and Patrick can hear his breath growing heavy next to his ear. 

“Talk to me David,” he whispers.

“What - _fuck_ \- what do you want to hear?”

That’s a good question, but Patrick isn’t sure he has a good answer. He just likes the sound of David’s voice.

“Tell me what you like,” he says.

“Hmm,” David hums. “I like your hand on me. On my cock.”

“What else?” 

“I like how you taste.”

Patrick’s rhythm falters for a moment at the memory of coming in David’s mouth and seeing him swallow every drop like his life depended on it.

David’s hips thrust helplessly against Patrick’s hand, and he tries to regain some semblance of composure. He remembers everything David asked him permission to do last night, and the memory gives him an idea. Keeping up his long strokes of David’s cock with his right hand, he reaches down with his left to grab hold of his balls. The action causes David’s whole body to twitch in his arms. He gives them a light squeeze and David lets out a choked moan.

“Do that again,” he demands, and Patrick does because he desperately wants to hear David make that noise again.

David drops his forehead down on Patrick's shoulder. One hand is braced against the wall behind Patrick and the other is gripping his shoulder like his life depends on it.

“How is this only the second time you’ve handled someone else’s cock?” he asks, and Patrick doesn’t know if he expects an actual answer.

Patrick picks up the pace, and David’s thrusts grow more desperate. “I don’t know,” Patrick tells him. “I just want to make you come. Tell me how David.”

“Tighter,” David demands through gritted teeth. “Focus on the head.”

Patrick does as he’s told and David lets out a keening whimper.

“ _Fuck Patrick_. Patrick - Patrick - Patrick,” he chants like a prayer. Patrick feels David’s balls tighten under his hand and he knows he’s close. He doesn’t change his pace, just strengthens his grip slightly and continues to drive his hand down David’s cock, precum mixing with the body milk, hot and slick against his palm.

Patrick presses his mouth against David’s ear. “Come for me,” he whispers. It’s not a demand; it’s a plea. “Please David, I want you to come for me. I want to make you come.”

He doesn’t know where the words come from. It’s not just dirty talk; he means them with complete and utter sincerity. All he wants is to make David come apart in his hand, to know that he made him feel good.

David comes with a shout, pumping hot spurts into Patrick’s palm. He keeps his hand moving, letting David ride out the orgasm against him. He doesn’t stop until David’s hand locks around his wrist and holds it still.

He raises his head from Patrick’s shoulder, his face flushed, his expression awestruck. He kisses Patrick, hard and sloppy and uncoordinated. When he pulls away there’s a weird half smile on David’s face and he’s shaking his head.

“What?” Patrick asks. “Something funny?”

“I’m just trying to remember the last time I came that hard from a fucking _handjob_.”

Patrick feels a swell of pride that he never would have expected to associate with sex. In fact, up until yesterday, the number of emotions he’d related to sex were few and far between. For the most part, he didn’t feel much of anything, because that was how he preferred it. It allowed him to focus on Rachel, on making sure that at least one of them would get to feel good. It was also vastly preferable to the feelings that occasionally managed to slip through no matter how hard he tried to suppress them: emptiness, loneliness, guilt, shame.

He simply learned to focus on just the physical sensations in order for him to finish. Then along comes David, and it’s impossible to turn off his brain when he touches him. Senses are heightened instead of dulled, and thoughts spill from his mouth before he has the chance to lock them away. Sex, he realizes, is as much a mental act as it is a physical one. 

“I think the real credit here goes to the body milk,” he jokes. “Really a versatile product.”

“Shut up,” David says, leaning his head back and closing his eyes against the water. When he straightens back up, he places a soft kiss on Patrick’s lips and gently pushes his chest until his back makes contact with the wall again. “My turn.”

He moves his head as though he’s going to kiss Patrick again, but swoops down at the last second and plants his lips against his collar bone instead. His hands ghost down the sides of Patrick’s hips and find their way to his ass. They knead his flesh as David bites and licks his way down Patrick’s chest. 

David reaches his nipple and runs his tongue across it. Patrick’s never had anyone play with his nipples before, not even himself, so he doesn’t expect the reaction it draws from him. He lets out a sharp gasp that David takes as encouragement to do it again. He sucks lightly, just for a few seconds, drawing another gasp from Patrick. David moves to the other nipple and this time, so fast that it’s actually over before Patrick’s body even registers the feeling, he bites down. Patrick jumps and lets out a soft whimper, but David is already laving his tongue over the bite and continuing his journey down Patrick’s body.

He kisses him everywhere - his navel, his hips, his thighs. The only thing he won’t touch is Patrick’s cock. He’s on his knees now, and if the tile floor is uncomfortable he doesn’t let on. He presses his lips to the place where Patrick’s leg meets his groin, just next to the base of his cock, and Patrick wonders if he's doing this to make him beg.

“Please David,” he whines.

David looks up at him through dark lashes. “Please what?”

“Touch me.”

David kisses the same spot on the other side. “I am touching you.”

“More. Please. Just... _more_.”

He worries it’s not enough, that David is really going to wait until he’s desperate and pleading, but then he feels his tongue lick a long stripe up the underside of his cock, and slips the head into his mouth. 

“ _Fuck!”_ he cries at the sensation, as he tries and fails to stop his hips from thrusting deeper into David’s mouth. “I’m sorry,” he pants.

David lets him slip out of his mouth. “For what?” he asks coyly.

“For pushing,” he says. “Into your mouth. I didn’t mean to - you just - it just felt really good.”

David smirks and shakes his head. “It’s supposed to feel good, don’t apologize.”

“You're sure?”

“It was kind of the reaction I was hoping for. I want you to enjoy yourself here. I want you to use me to enjoy yourself.”

Patrick hesitates. It sounds insanely hot and also mildly terrifying at the same time. “Use you?” he asks.

“You know, hold my head, fuck my mouth. Use me to get yourself off.”

Patrick’s sure he looks like a deer caught in the headlights. He doesn’t want to sound ungrateful by turning down an offer like that, but he doesn’t know if he’s capable of doing it, of getting off while causing someone else discomfort. He could barely make it through taking Rachel’s virginity for fear of hurting her, and here's David inviting him to lose all control in his mouth.

David must have noticed the hesitation in Patrick’s face, because before Patrick can say anything he simply shrugs and says, “Or not. Your call.” And sinks his mouth down on Patrick’s cock once more. 

He sucks him hard and deep, opening his throat to him, and it’s all Patrick can do to keep his knees from buckling under the sensation. He can already feel himself leaking into David’s mouth and he knows he’s not going to be able to hold out for very long if he keeps up this pace. He feels David bring up a hand to cradle his balls and he bites back a groan. David’s hand moves around them like he’s learning their weight and shape and feel. Side to side, back to front, all while he continues to pump Patrick’s cock back and forth into his mouth. Then he feels the hand slip just behind his balls, his touch glancing against the sensitive skin there and pulling away. He expects it to move back to his balls when he feels a single finger graze against his hole.

His whole body rocks up at the touch and a flash of he heat swoops in his stomach. David pulls back and is on his feet in an instant. “Shit, I’m sorry,” he says, his eyes searching Patrick’s face with a worried expression. He drops a quick kiss on to his lips before apologizing again. 

“For what?” Patrick finally manages to get out. 

“I should have asked before I touched you there. That isn’t just a thing you go for. Not everyone likes - I mean a lot do - but it’s not - ”

Patrick shuts him up with a kiss. He pulls back and plants a hand on either side of David’s face. “It’s fine, please stop apologizing.”

“No, _really_ , I should have asked. Wait, why are you laughing?”

Patrick hadn’t noticed that he was. He drops his hands from David’s face and can feel himself grinning. “Because you’re cute when you freak out.”

“ _Cute_?”

“I mean that in the best possible way. Look, everything you did last night - the asking and the checking in with me - was great. It was...it was exactly what I needed. But I don’t need everything we do to be a teachable moment. You can try stuff, and I can decide if I like it or not. You said so yourself, a yes can become a no without it being the end of the world.”

David chews his lip in a nervous gesture that is already becoming familiar to Patrick. “You’re sure?”

“Will you stop if I say stop?”

“Of course.”

“Then yes.”

Part of him wonders if he’s trusting David with too much too soon, or if he doesn’t really understand what he’s just agreed to. He accepts that this discussion probably shouldn’t be taking place in a shower, mid-blow job. But his instincts, as David pointed out last night, have served him fairly well in the past twenty-four hours. Maybe they deserve a little more credit than he’s been giving them.

“So,” David says, “if there was something I wanted to try that I think you might like - ”

“Yes,” Patrick interjects.

“You don’t even know what you’re saying yes to.”

“True,” Patrick admits. “I guess you’ll just have to show me.”

David squints at him doubtfully and doesn’t move to touch him.

“I trust you.” He doesn’t know what else he can say to make David believe him.

David spreads his hand over Patrick’s chest and loops them behind his neck. “That is a _very_ dangerous offer you just made.” His tone is half playful, half serious. 

“Oh I know,” Patrick replies. “If I had boots on right now I’d be shaking in them”

“Okay then,” David announces, apparently ready to take Patrick at his word. “Turn around.”

The words send a shiver down Patrick’s spine and he does as he’s told.

David’s hands, firm but still gentle, grab at his hips and pull them back, forcing Patrick to lean forward and brace his hands against the wall for balance. 

“Spread your legs for me.” His breath is hot against his left ear. Patrick hesitates for a moment, and then tells himself that he can always stop if he needs to. He slides his legs apart.

The position makes him feel vulnerable, not because he’s afraid of what David might do to him, but because he can’t see what’s happening. David has such an expressive face that it’s hard to read a situation where he can’t see it.

“Relax,” David says, his voice back in his ear. He places a kiss on Patrick’s shoulder. “Nothing is going inside of you. Only touch.”

Patrick tenses; he hadn’t even considered that option being on the table, though given his current position he probably should have. He wants to ask David what he means by ‘only touch’ and why he can’t turn around to look at him, but he just told David he trusts him. He doesn’t want David to think those were just empty words to him.

“I’m just going to make you feel good,” David tells him. “Okay?”

“O-o-okay.”

“Anytime you want to touch yourself, you can.” Patrick thinks that it’s supposed to be David doing the touching, but he nods anyway.

There’s another kiss on his shoulder, this one sharper - more teeth.

David’s hands feel like they’re everywhere at once - his back, his sides, his arms, his shoulders. His mouth slides down his back, following the dip of his spine. Patrick has two dimples on his lower back; David traces over them with his tongue. 

Patrick closes his eyes, not finding much benefit in staring at a tile wall, and focuses on every place on his body that he can feel David’s touch. The fact that he can’t see him makes each moment of contact a small surprise. He can feel his nerves crackling under his skin.

Two hands grab hold of his ass, and a kiss lands at the very base of his spine. One hand lets go, and then David feels it again - the light touch of a finger brushing against his hole. He stops himself from jumping as hard as he did last time. It feels good. A little foreign, a little strange, but good.

The finger traces along his rim, making no move to push inside of him, just as David had promised. It seems content with moving from his hole to the delicate expanse of skin leading to his balls and back again. David circles his hole and eventually starts to add pressure every few passes. He never gets close to actually pushing into him, but just the press of his finger against his asshole is enough to make Patrick gasp and shake.

David’s finger disappears and Patrick actually whines at the loss of it. It’s replaced almost immediately by the feeling of David’s tongue. 

“ _Oh my God._ ” The words fall out of Patrick’s mouth in a strangled cry.

He hadn’t even considered the possibility that David might do this to him. He knows what this is, having sampled a few select videos online over the past few months, but he’s always suspected it's one of those things that _only_ happens in porn. Something that looks good on screen but would be awkward and unsatisfying in real life. It’s why watching those videos had never really become a habit - he hated not knowing what was real and what wasn’t. He hated the idea that one day he could be in a position like - well, like _this_ \- and make a fool of himself by trying something that no one really enjoys when they’re not being paid to do it.

But then David’s tongue licks a broad stripe over his hole and his knees almost buckle and he doesn’t understand how he ever thought this wouldn’t feel good. The tongue, hot and wet and probing, flits over his rim with a feather light touch, and Patrick can’t stop himself from pressing back into David’s face in search of more pressure. 

David holds him firm, spreading his cheeks, but obliges to the demands of Patrick’s body and brings his tongue down hard and pointed, always just shy of entering him. Patrick collapses forward so he’s being held up by his forearms now, and he barely registers the words that spill from his lips.

“David, please, David, please fuck, more, fuck, that’s good, _that’s so good_ , don’t stop.” 

And those are just the words he can actually make sense of. There are long stretches of nothing more than high, reedy moans and choked gasps. 

David slips a hand between Patrick’s legs and wraps it around his cock, making him aware of just how painfully hard he is. David’s strokes him a few times, but the angle is awkward the hand is put to much better use holding open Patrick’s ass for the continued assault of his tongue.

David pulls away from him just long enough to deliver an order. “Touch yourself Patrick.”

Patrick isn’t sure that’s such a good idea given that he’s barely holding himself up as it is, but the absence of David’s hand is too much for him and he reaches down to touch himself.

He finds himself slick with precum and he drives his cock into his fist. David’s tongue is relentless against his hole, and he starts to thrust his hips again in a desperate bid to feel more of it. Conscious thought leaves him completely, and his body is guided by the storm of sensations he’s experiencing - forward into his own tight fist and back into David’s mouth, over and over. It’s only been minutes but it feels like an eternity, like he’s always been here and always will be here. 

He feels a coil tightening within him, just below his navel, like a metal wire being heated and stretched thin. He’s close, so close, and he doesn’t want it to stop but he needs to come, he’s desperate for it.

The wire is pulled thinner and thinner until finally it snaps, and Patrick is coming hard and fast into his fist. David doesn’t slow his tongue at all, and it draws out Patrick’s orgasm even further.

Patrick waits until his breathing is under control before he attempts to open his eyes. He holds his hand under the shower head to rinse off the last of his come before turning around and allowing himself to collapse against the wall. David crawls up his body, laying down soft wet kisses up his torso as he goes. Then his face fills Patrick’s field of vision, an impish grin on his lips.

“Hi.”

Patrick can’t help but laugh at receiving such a simple greeting from David after what he just did to him. “Hi there.”

“So that was…”

“Fucking incredible?”

David positively glows at the praise. He wraps his arms lightly around Patrick’s neck. “I was going to say _nice_ ,” he claims coyly. “But that works too.”

Patrick leans forward and kisses him, soft and slow. 

A thought occurs to him - _an opportunity_ \- given how warm and open David’s being right now.

“Hey David?”

“Mmm?” 

“You totally thought I ran away this morning, didn’t you?”

David’s face contorts into a parody of bewilderment. “I...uh, no. Definitely not. I thought you were out getting coffee, or...something.”

“David?” Patrick asks again softly.

“Yeah?”

“You’re a really bad liar.”

“...I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I highly recommend the pre-buttered broiler method for your toast, it's a real game changer.
> 
> I also totally cribbed the "only because you stammered line" from the movie Stranger Than Fiction. I just really wanted to hear it in David's voice.


	13. Dumplings

David wakes up from the kind of nap where he can’t tell if he's slept for five minutes or five hours, but he knows he’s not alone. There’s an arm draped across his stomach, connected to Patrick’s own sleeping form.

He glances at the clock on his nightstand and doesn’t quite believe it when it tells him it’s already four PM. His brain feels fuzzy from too much sleep and he has to concentrate to piece together the parts of the day he was awake for. There was some panicking and then there were bagels which helped make up for the panicking. Then there was a very long shower and Patrick’s hand around his cock. 

Now the memories start to slot themselves together neatly in his mind.

David had taken a gamble. Almost every guy who had used David for a night of experimenting always seemed to be under the impression that sleeping with a guy necessarily had to involve anal. Most of them seemed happy enough to use mouths and hands, but then there’d be this awkward moment where they’d feel the need to pull back and clarify that they weren’t interested in anything happening ‘down there’. They’d give him a serious look, like they were laying down the law lest David try to lull them into a false sense of security with an innocent handjob only to sneak a dick in their ass when they least suspect it.

David was always tempted to point out that there were queer men who’d been sleeping with other men for years who never enjoyed giving or receiving anal. That there were plenty of straight men in the world who enjoyed being pegged by their female partners. That just because they saw Brokeback Mountain on cable one time doesn’t mean that most couples go from first kiss to fucking one another up the ass with zero foreplay and only saliva for lube in the span of thirty seconds. But instead he bites his tongue and gives them an understanding smile. 

“Of course,” he says. “Whatever you’re comfortable with.” After all, they’ll be gone by morning anyway.

The other side of that coin was the rare overly ambitious type who as soon as the clothes came off was begging for David to stick his dick in them with absolutely zero prep work, which then required him to carefully and succinctly explain just how bad of an idea that was. At one point he considered making a slideshow presentation on the benefits of lube just to have on hand if the situation called for it.

He hadn’t planned on springing anything on Patrick. His plan, not that he had much of one to begin with, was to let Patrick broach the subject if it was really something he was interested in. But then he had his mouth around him and he was responding so beautifully to every little touch that David forgot himself for a moment. He’d brushed a finger against him, there and gone, only for a second, and Patrick’s whole body had shaken and he thought he’d made a huge mistake.

But then Patrick had surprised him. He’d looked up at him with those wide brown eyes and told David that he trusted him.

He just said it.

Out loud.

Like it didn’t cost him anything.

_Who does that?_

David thought he had to be joking. Patrick had only known him for a few hours, half of which were spent asleep. David had known Alexis his entire life and wouldn’t trust her with a tamagotchi.

How could he just decide to trust David, especially with something so intimate? This wasn’t a toe in the water type situation, like trying a little nipple play to see if it does anything for the other person, and the worst possible reaction is a lukewarm shrug and maybe a stray chest hair ending up in your mouth.

If there’s one thing David’s learned from his storied sexual past, it’s that eating ass isn’t just something you dabble in. Also that the term ‘eating ass’ will never sound sexy, no matter how much he actually enjoys doing it, and ‘rimming’ sounds like something you pay extra for when you’re getting your car detailed. 

It requires trust, yes, but also patience, attentiveness, and a certain amount of dedication to personal hygiene inorder to make it work. The recipient has to be willing to put themselves in an incredibly vulnerable position and the giver has to know how to pick up on cues to speed up or slow down without being able to see their partner’s face. It could be a bitch and a half to pull off at the best of times, which is why David typically steers clear of it with one night stands.

But...Patrick. 

Trembling and responsive and hot and wanting. 

He wanted to fuck him and be fucked by him and come with him and come for him. Truth be told, no matter how much David would rather it wasn't, he was a goner the moment Patrick showed up holding his key and a bag of bagels. 

  
  


**

David wonders what the odds are of getting out from under Patrick’s arm without waking him. Probably not good, but he gives it a go anyway, lightly grabbing hold of his wrist and lifting it up. Patrick’s breathing remains deep and even as David shimmies his way to the edge of the bed. 

He’s grateful he had the sense to put on clothes earlier, despite how tempting it was to collapse into bed and pass out immediately after they got out of the shower. He slips silently out of the room, closing the door behind him. 

He checks his phone for the first time since that morning. Two missed calls and about a dozen texts from Alexis that he doesn’t even bother to open. A couple emails for the gallery, one from a prospective artist who he’s been trying to set up a meeting with for over a month. He flags it and moves on to an email blast from a gay bar he used to frequent in his younger years. 

He’s since moved on to much more exclusive, less rowdy establishments, but never got around to unsubscribing from their mailing list. It’s advertising a disco party taking place that night, two for one drinks before midnight. His thumb hovers over the trash icon for a moment before changing his mind and leaving it marked as read.

He hears a noise behind him and turns around to see Patrick shuffle into the kitchen. He’s wearing a pair of pajama bottoms David lent him in lieu of sleeping in his own jeans. He had to roll them three times at the waist and they’re still too long on him, but the sight of them riding low around Patrick’s hips inspires all kinds of ideas in David.

He’s shirtless and David lets himself enjoy an eyeful of his chest and shoulders, both thick with muscle hidden under a small layer of baby fat. He figures Patrick must play some kind of sport, or maybe he’s just one of those rare human beings who actually uses their gym membership past the first two weeks of January. No one gets that kind of build from working behind a desk all day.

Patrick rubs the sleep from his eyes and offers David a tired smile. “I’d seriously consider stealing that mattress from you if it wouldn’t cost me a fortune in baggage fees. Water?”

“In the fridge door, on the right,” David points, grateful that he asked instead of just helping himself. “And I take that as a compliment. My mother always said you should invest good money on anything that goes between you and the ground.”

Patrick takes a long pull of water and offers the bottles to David who momentarily forgets about his policy on drink sharing and accepts.

“Such as?” Patrick asks.

“Mattresses, shoes, cars,” David ticks them off on his fingers. “Sexual partners,” he adds with a wink.

Patrick lets out a throaty laugh and David gets to enjoy seeing how his whole body shakes with it. “And I thought my mom was ahead of the curve for slipping me condoms before prom.”

“Well she’s no June Cleaver, but Moira Rose does have the occasional moment of insight.”

Patrick drains the bottle and leans back against the counter next to David. David marvels at how comfortable he looks in his own skin. He doesn’t even walk around shirtless in the kitchen, and he owns the place.

Patrick bumps David’s hip with his own to get his attention. “Is there any chance you’d be interested in getting some food?”

“Mmmhmm, always.” He grabs his phone. “I think I’m single handedly keeping Postmates in business by now, what were you craving?”

“Actually, I was thinking we could go out to get some food. I’d like to say I tried at least some New York cuisine that didn’t come served from a cart.”

David pulls a face at the thought of coming all the way here just to eat a dirty water dog. 

“Uh-uh,” he says with a shake of his head. “Hard no.”

He runs through a mental list of all the places he’d want to eat if he only had a few days to experience New York.

The 21 Club has a new head chef, but a pretty strict dress code that he doubts Patrick came packed for.

Carbone has at least a two month waiting list for a reservation.

Tao simply isn’t worth the price when it comes to Chinese food.

But it gave him an idea.

“How do you feel about dumplings?”  


**

The Jade Village looks exactly like David remembers it, even though he hasn’t been here in almost a year. The peeling formica tables, a slightly off putting smell of too many types of meat being cooked next to one another, the flickering blue-gray fluorescent lights making it look like they’re about to eat dinner in the middle of a Ridley Scott movie.

Patrick does a double take when David holds the door open for him. 

“What?”

“Uh...nothing. This just isn’t the kind of place I pictured you wanting to eat at.”

David holds up two fingers at a rather tired looking hostess, who nods and doesn’t seat them so much as she vaguely points at an empty table.

“Let me guess, you thought I’d take you some place where the food is so expensive they don’t even bother putting the prices on the menu.”

Patrick has the good grace to look a little ashamed. “Something like that,” he admits.

“Look, I’ll own up to being a snob about most things. I don’t think it’s a crime to expect a certain level of quality in life if you’re willing to pay for it.”

“And food is an area where you’re willing to compromise?”

“See, that’s the thing,” David says, opening up his menu. “The food here _is_ quality. They just don’t charge like it is.”

“So you wouldn’t spend ten bucks on a meal from Panda Express, but you’re happy to do it here?”

“Exactly.” He’s relieved Patrick gets it. He’s tried explaining his logic to some of his art scene friends before, and it usually ends with him eating here alone. “You have to try the pork dumplings, they’re life changing.”

Patrick doesn’t question what kind of life someone needs to be leading in order for pork dumplings to be considered a game changer, but he does look a little confused.

“Pork?”

“Umm, yeah? There’s beef too, or vegetable if that’s more your thing.”

“No, sorry, I just thought - didn’t you mention you were Jewish?”

It takes David a second to figure out what that has to do with anything before it finally clicks.

“Oh! Yeah, I see, the pork thing - no. I mean, yes, I am. I’ve got a delightful half and half situation going on. My dad’s Jewish and my mum was raised Catholic. We did the big holidays for each, but other than that I haven’t set foot inside of a synagogue since my bar mitzvah. I prefer it that way - all of the pageantry, none of the guilt.”

Patrick chuckles. “Careful there, your accent is showing.”

“Accent?”

“You said ‘mum’ instead of ‘mom’. Keep it up and we’ll have to pick you an Alanis Morisette album on our way home.”

David pretends he didn’t just hear the words ‘our’ and ‘home’ come out of Patrick’s mouth. And when that doesn’t work, he pretends it has no correlation to the somersaults his stomach started doing after he said it.

“You say that like I don’t already own all of them.”

“Duly noted. So definitely the pork dumplings then?”

“Definitely,” he agrees. “If I could make love to any form of dough, those dumplings would be it.”

“What a graphic image,” Patrick mutters before burying his face in the menu.

The waiter comes by for their drink orders and drops a bowl of fried wonton strips on the table.

“What about your parents?” David asks through a mouth of deep fried wonton wrapping.

“What about them?”

“Are they religious?”

“Not really, no. I once heard my dad describe himself as ‘mildly Christian’, whatever that means. And my mom used to look after babies for the Sunday school at the Methodist church down the street from our house, but she never went for services. Just liked the kids I guess.”

David struggles to imagine anyone willingly looking after babies that don’t belong to them for free. He’s not even sure if he could look after one that was actually related to him.

He hesitates before speaking again. Patrick’s been an open book so far - like, to an almost unsettling degree - but what David wants to ask him next doesn’t usually make for fun dinner conversation.

“There’s something I’ve wanted to ask, but I’m worried that if I do you’ll be tempted to chuck a drink in my face rather than answer.”

Patrick looks at him strangely. “I can’t really imagine anything that would make me want to do that, but go ahead.”

“It’s personal is all.”

Patrick leans in and drops his voice down so only David can hear him. “David, after what you did to me this morning, I think we’re past ‘personal’.”

David’s mind floods with the memory of Patrick’s body up against the shower wall, David’s name on his lips, and he feels heat creep into his cheeks.

It almost sounded like a joke, but the look in his eyes is completely serious. David thinks he’s only just starting to appreciate how differently Patrick views sex than he does. Those were not the words of someone who’s had much casual sex in their lives, nor particularly wants to. 

He remembers Patrick telling him in the elevator how his sexual history up until that point had consisted of Rachel and a couple of miserable failed attempts at a one night stand. While the fact that those attempts were with women had probably doomed them from the start, David suspects Patrick wouldn’t have had all that great of a time if they’d been men either. Something about him just isn’t hardwired for casual sex.

So what does that make all the sex they’ve been having? It’s not a question he can even begin to answer with Patrick sitting three feet away.

“Okay then,” he says. “I was just wondering if your parents had something to do with why you haven’t come out. I thought that maybe they were religious or - I don’t know.” Patrick shifts uneasily in his seat and David hates himself for even bringing this up. “I’m sorry. I told you it was too personal, ignore me.”

“No, no, no, it’s not,” Patrick insists. “It’s really nothing quite as dramatic as that. My parents are good people. They were never going to kick me off the family Christmas card or hold a prayer circle for me.” He starts to mindlessly break apart a handful of wonton strips into his own bowl. His eyes are looking down at his hands but David doesn’t think he’s really seeing them. “I never told them I was gay because, until about a year ago, I wasn’t really sure myself.”

“Really? Twenty-nine years and you never had an inkling?” 

“Oh there were plenty of inklings,” Patrick says with a dry laugh. “I saw Fight Club, like, fifteen times in theaters, and it definitely wasn’t for Helena Bonham Carter.”

“Mmm,” David hums fondly. “Back when Brad Pitt had abs you could grate a block of cheese on.”

“Actually it was Edward Norton who really did it for me.”

David snorts. “ _Really?_ The clean cut office worker? So you basically wanted to fuck a future version of yourself?”

Patrick chucks a piece of wonton at him. “How do you know what I wear to work?”

“Dark jeans, blue oxford button up, brown loafers or boots depending on the weather.”

“How the hell - ”

“I’ve yet to see you wear a top that isn’t some shade of blue. It’s not hard to imagine what the rest of your closet looks like.”

“I own a couple green shirts too,” Patrick offers meekly.

“How have they kept you off the cover of Vogue for this long?” The question earns him another wonton strip down the front of his sweater. He digs it out and pops it in his mouth.“Didn’t Fight Club come out when you were a teenager?” 

“Thirteen,” Patrick confirms. 

“So you just spent the next sixteen years pretending you didn’t want to get a look at Edward Norton’s Golden Globe?”

Patrick rolls his eyes at the jab but doesn’t resort to throwing food this time. “Denial is a powerful thing. I had Rachel, who was - _is_ \- perfect. Kind and funny and generous. Even now, the stuff that used to annoy me about her somehow just makes me miss her.”

It shouldn’t bother David to hear Patrick talk about his ex like this, especially considering that ex is a woman, but it does. All those words he just used to describe her were not ones that anyone would ever ascribe to David. Maybe funny, but usually at someone else’s expense, which probably negates the whole ‘kind’ thing. 

The waiter comes back with their drinks and Patrick takes a long pull of his beer before he speaks again. “You know, even now most of my family still thinks we’ll get back together eventually. And I can’t really blame them, it’s what we always do. _That’s_ the Patrick they know. And even though I don’t think coming out to them would make them love me any less than they do now, I just...I can’t imagine it not changing how they see me.”

“You’re still you,” David argues. “It’s not like you’re going to start randomly sucking dick every time they take you out in public.”

The joke catches him mid-sip and David gets to enjoy the sight of Patrick shooting beer out of his nose in an effort to save himself from choking. 

“You ever consider a career as a guidance counselor? I really think you might’ve missed your calling.” Patrick asks, dabbing at his face with a napkin. 

David waves a hand dismissively. “I don’t really like kids. They’re always so sticky.”

“When was the last time you actually interacted with a kid?”

David thinks for a second. “You remember that little red-headed boy who did those annoying yogurt commercials in the early two thousands? The ones with the talking rabbit?”

“Sure.”

“I saw him doing lines of coke in the bathroom of the Rainbow Room last summer. Does that count?”

Patrick stares at him incredulously and shakes his head.

“What? You asked!”

David flags down their waiter and takes the liberty of ordering for the both of them, which comes out to about half the menu. Patrick is oddly quiet after he leaves, and David remembers what they’d been talking about before he had hijacked the conversation.

“So you’re scared they’ll treat you differently?”

Patrick props his chin up on one hand and gives the question some thought. “I guess,” he finally says, sounding resigned to the assessment. “Or maybe you had it right earlier. Maybe I’m just scared of change.”

David cringes, recalling how quick he’d been to rattle off all the reasons why his partners would rather quietly slip back into the closet then come out. It hadn’t occurred to him that Patrick would think he was lumping him in with them.

“That’s not what I - I didn’t mean you - ”

“Hey, no, it’s fine.” Patrick reaches over and places a hand on David’s arm. “I wasn’t offended and you weren’t entirely wrong. Your delivery could use a little work though.” He smiles at David, a little sad and a little kind all at once.

David sheepishly rubs a hand down his own face.“I guess tact has never really been my strong suit.”

“Yeah, I’d picked up on that.”

“Sorry,” David says weakly. “I was kind of raised by wolves.”

“Kind of?”

“Wolves in lace front wigs and tailored suits, but wolves nonetheless,” he jokes.

“I’m sure they’re not so bad.”

David can only shrug. He knows that in the grand scheme of things he could have done much worse in terms of parents who were blessed with more money than sense, but they were also never going to be the kind of people who volunteered to look after babies during Sunday school out of the kindness of their hearts. 

“Well this got really fucking dark,” David announces with sarcastic cheer. “Anything else we should discuss while we’re here? Dead pets, traumatic childhood haircuts? My sister once caught me jerking off to an episode of Beverly Hills 90210, and I don’t think I’ve ever really been the same.”

“Jason Priestley or Jennie Garth?” Patrick asks with what appears to be genuine curiosity.

“Luke Perry _and_ Shannon Doherty.”

“Woah, dream big,” Patrick says, and attempts to waggle his eyebrows salaciously. 

They lock eyes and manage to hold their bearing for all of three seconds before dissolving into laughter. They barely notice the plates of food being dropped off at their table, or the weird looks they’re getting from both their waiter and the hostess.

**

“I think we should talk.”

There it is. The five worst words in the English language. They never precede good news. People who have good news just share it. Nobody eases their way into announcing their engagement or a big promotion at work, but bad news demands some verbal cushioning. 

Break-ups usually take a solid minute of preamble, more if they go the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ route. A potential STD diagnosis necessitates two to three alcoholic beverages and lots of beating around the bush before it can be properly delivered, possibly less if it’s the kind that can be knocked out by a round of aggressive antibiotics.

David knew this moment would come eventually. He just thought the ‘knowing’ part would make the ‘experiencing’ part easier.

“We are talking,” he points out and takes a sip of his drink.

“Ha-ha,” Patrick replies dryly. He taps his chopsticks nervously on the edge of his plate, stopping only when he notices David staring pointedly at his hand. “I meant that I have something I want to say to you. And I don’t know how it’s going to go over so I figured I should just do it now while we’ve got booze and lo mein to fall back on in case things really go sideways.”

“Ugh, you can relax, I know what you’re going to say.”

“You do?”

“Yes and...it’s fine.” He takes a breath to gather his thoughts, searching his mind for the greatest hits of saving face. “Last night was great. This morning too. But I know you didn’t come to New York just to see the inside of my shower - ”

“David, wait, I don’t think you actually know where I was going with this at all.”

“I don’t?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because if I saw nothing but the inside of your shower for this entire trip, it still would’ve been worth the flight.”

“Oh…okay.” So this was a left turn. He was starting to think those were the only kind Patrick made. “Wait, wasn’t your flight free?”

Patrick cringes and David wishes he hasn’t remembered that little fact. 

“Yeah, maybe ignore that part for the sake of the metaphor.”

“I can do that.”

“Look, what I actually wanted to say was that I’m on the first flight out on Monday morning. I only have about thirty-six hours left in New York, and if this isn’t super weird and presumptuous of me to even ask...I’d like to spend them with you.”

Patrick was right - David had no idea this was where the conversation was going. He was prepared to get ‘Dear John-ed’ before the fortune cookies even arrived and now it looks like the leftovers aren’t the only thing he’s going to be taking home with him tonight.

Part of him thinks that he should shut this down, here and now. That if they call it now, they can walk away having had some great sex and great dumplings, which is already leagues better than the sad jerking off and shame eating that were on the ballot for him if they hadn't gotten stuck in that elevator last night. No hard feelings, just fond memories. 

He should put a stop to this.

He _really_ should.

The problem is, David’s never really known when to say when. 

“Or not,” Patrick adds quietly, and David realizes that he’s gone way too long without talking. “If that’s not something you’re interested - ”

“I am,” David says, cutting him off. “I am interested. If you are.” He’s trying to not sound too eager. 

Patrick’s smile takes over his whole face and David thinks it might actually kill him.

He clears his throat. “Speaking of not wanting to be presumptuous, you didn’t just mean you want to spend the next thirty-six hours having sex in my apartment, right? Because I’m not opposed to that, I’m just going to need to pick up Gatorade and maybe some trail mix before we go back to my place. You know, to keep my stamina up.”

Patrick laughs at his joke, though there’s part of David that was hoping he’d actually agree and start looking up directions to the closest Duane Reade. 

“No, not ‘just’. Though, uh, maybe some? I could definitely go for some.” The tips of his ears go pink and David wonders if throwing Patrick on the table and having his way with him would be worth the lifetime ban it would probably earn him. It’s tempting, but David decides he loves their dumplings too much.

“I think we can find time for ‘some’.”

Patrick lets out a little sigh of relief. “Good. Glad we’re on the same page.”

David isn't sure they’re even reading the same book, but he still wants to know how this one ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not the only one who cried at the end of the last episode, right?


	14. It's a sex thing

Patrick doesn’t know if he just made things better or worse for himself by asking David to spend his last day in New York with him. He just knows it’s what he wants, which isn’t something he’s very used to getting.

The departure time on his ticket home is already hanging over his head like guillotine on a slowly fraying rope. Every time he looks at a clock, he registers it not in how much time has passed, but how much time he has left, and David is entirely to blame for that.

Patrick wants to believe that everything he’s feeling is just a byproduct years of pent up sexual urges combined with meeting someone who could make him feel like he was falling off a cliff with nothing more than his tongue. He doesn’t want to imagine himself as some lovesick puppy falling head over heels for the first guy to touch his dick. 

But ever since last night, David Rose has crept into his brain and started taking up major real estate there, and Patrick doesn’t think that he can just chalk that up to the sex. 

He says things to David that he never thought he'd be able to say out loud to another human being. The voice inside his head, the one that’s been giving him hell since the day he ran away from his hometown, the one that never seems to give him a minute of peace, has gone quiet since the moment David’s lips had touched his. And if talking with David is easy, it’s nothing compared to laughing with him. He didn’t know that it was possible to feel this comfortable with another person. 

He wonders if he could have just said goodbye after dinner. If he could have walked away with the memories and closed the book on his time with David. But there’s no point in asking those questions now. He’s in it, for better or worse.

**

“I don’t know if I can walk David. I think you might just have to roll me back to my hotel.” David had been right, the dumplings were _excellent_.

“Your hotel?”

“Yeah. You remember it - luxurious rooms, charming staff, and a rather lax approach to health and safety standards?”

David stares down at his feet, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Um, yeah, I’m familiar. I was just thinking that maybe you’d rather stay at my place tonight?”

Patrick couldn’t think of anything he’d rather do more, but he didn’t want David to think that he was using him to avoid his own lackluster accommodations. “I’d love to,” he says, “but you don’t have to offer just to be polite. I can meet up with you tomorrow morning if you want your place to yourself for the night.”

David lets out a tired little huff. “I have my place to myself pretty much year around. You’re only here for two more nights.”

“Okay,” Patrick says, and slips an arm around his waist. “If you’re sure you don’t mind.”

David leans down and plants a soft kiss on his mouth. Pulling back, he says, “You don’t know me all that well, but I don’t really go around offering my bed to people just to be polite.” 

Patrick moves to kiss him again but David places a hand on his chest to stop him. “How set are you on packing things in for the night?”

In truth, Patrick was already imagining getting back to David’s apartment and making good use of his bed again, but he doesn’t want to seem overeager. “I’m not set on anything, why?”

“How would you feel about hitting up a bar?” David looks a little too apprehensive to be asking such a straightforward question.

“What kind of bar?”

“...a gay bar.”

“Oh.” Patrick takes a step back from David, suddenly feeling very hot around his neck despite the bitter chill in the air. He doesn’t know why the idea of going to a gay bar intimidates him, especially when placed on a spectrum against everything else he’s done in the last twenty-four hours, but it does. He’s never actually been to one, what with the nightlife in Schitt’s Creek consisting solely of The Wobbly Elm, but he’s pretty sure gay bars aren’t for people who hide from their ex-fiancees in foreign countries.

He can feel David’s eyes on him but he just wished he had a better reason to give him other than general cowardice. 

“Okay, so just going off the look on your face I take it you’re not into that idea and that’s totally fine.” David shrugs causally like he didn’t even really want to go either, despite it being his idea.

“No,” Patrick objects. “No, we can go. I’ve just never been to one is all.”

“Okay, well I promise it’s just a bar, not a bathhouse. You’ve been to a bar before, right?”

“Of course,” he says with a roll of his eyes.

“Cool, so just picture that, except everyone’s better looking and there’s no Bruce Springsteen on the jukebox.”

“Gay men don’t like The Boss?”

“Not as much as they like house music from the nineties.”

As much as Patrick just wants to go back to David’s apartment, he also knows he should be trying new things while he has the chance. And he’d rather do this with David than on his own.

“Alright,” he relents. “Why not?”

“Okay, the enthusiasm is mild, but it’s there, so I’ll take it.” He tosses one arm lightly over Patrick’s shoulders and uses the other to hail them a cab.

**

There’s already a quickly growing line at the door to get it in when they arrive. Patrick didn’t expect there to already be much of a crowd this early in the evening, but then he catches sight of a flier informing him of the a two for one drink special* (*well drinks only) that ends at midnight.

Most of the people in line appear to be in their mid-twenties- a few younger, a few older, and almost all, as David predicted, very good looking. Patrick looks down at his beat up leather boots and his five year old pairs of Levis and suddenly feels very self conscious.

Patrick nudges David’s arm. “If there’s a minimum amount of hair product required to get into this place then I’m screwed.”

“Very cute,” David replies dryly.

“I’m serious, I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb.” 

David gives him a head to toe once over and waves his hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, you’re hot.”

Patrick pretends those words don’t do anything for his ego, but it’s hard when they come from someone who Patrick thinks might be the gorgeous man he’s ever met.

“That’s nice and all, but that guy over there could probably cut glass with his jaw line.”

David reaches out and strokes Patrick’s chin with his fingers. “True, but imagine how painful it would be to get a blow job from him. He’d leave paper cuts on your thighs.”

He knows David is trying to make him feel better but now all he’s thinking about the inside of David’s thighs and it’s making him want to go back to the apartment even more than he already did.

The line slowly shuffles forward until they finally make their way inside, with David paying the cover charge for both of them against Patrick’s protests. They make their way down a flight of stairs and come out into a dimly lit bar dominated by a large dance floor at its center. The floor is full but not overflowing. The majority of its occupants have ditched their heavy winter coats to reveal a general fondness for tight shirts with rolled sleeves, and jeans so well fitted that Patrick could probably pick out who in the crowd is circumcised. 

The music coming from the room’s speaker system is loud enough that Patrick can feel it reverberating in his bones. He put his mouth up to David’s ear and shouts, “Is this The Bee Gees?!”

David listens carefully for a moment and then nods. “I forgot to tell you, it’s disco night!”

“What?!”

“Disco!”

“Dicks?!” Patrick knows that can’t possibly be right but he swears it’s what he hears.

David looks pained at the idea of having to repeat himself, so he grabs Patrick by the arm and steers him back to the stairwell. “Disco! It’s disco night!”

“Oh God, that makes so much more sense.” At least it explains why someone is willingly playing The Bee Gees in 2017.

“ _Dicks_?” David asks incredulously. “I know this is a gay bar, but you actually thought I was trying to tell you that theme was ‘ _dicks_ ’?”

“I could barely hear myself think in there!” Even from within the cement stairwell the bass is coming through the walls.

“Fine, one more floor,” David says, and nudges him to the stairs.

The next level down is almost a carbon copy of the one above them, minus the dance floor. The space is occupied instead by a lounge area consisting of several plush couches and low glass tables. The music is still coming loud and clear through the ceiling, but is at least muffled enough to allow for an actual conversation to take place. 

“Better?” David asks.

“Much,” Patrick replies, already feeling a little more at ease. This room isn’t nearly as packed given the lack of dance floor, though most of the couches have at least one or two people seated at them. David points out two empty seats at the bar and they make their way towards them.

Patrick starts throwing off his layers of winter clothes while David flags down the bartender, a slim but well built Asian man in bell bottom jeans and an unbuttoned shirt with lapels out to his shoulders. Clearly the staff has to dress the part for the night. He comes to a stop in front of Patrick and offers him a smile.

“Anything I can get you babe?”

Babe. Okay then.

“Uh...whiskey and coke?”

He glances over at David, who has a massive shit-eating grin on his face. 

“Preference on the whiskey?”

“Any kind of rye if you’ve got it.”

“Sure thing,” the bartender replies, holding eye contact for longer than Patrick thinks could possibly be necessary. 

“Make that two please,” David says, and the bartender looks over at him like he forgot anyone was occupying that seat, despite the fact that David was the one to call him over in the first place. 

Patrick can feel David’s eyes on him as the bartender turns away to make their drinks. 

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re smiling,” Patrick points out.

“I can’t smile?”

“David, we both know you’ve got resting bitch face, please don’t pretend like this is your new default.”

“Okay, fine! I’m just enjoying having my suspicions confirmed.”

“What suspicions?”

“That you would do _very_ well here...babe.”

Patrick face flushes with embarrassment, and he suddenly feels like David’s observing him through a microscope. “Because of one overly-friendly bartender who’s probably just being nice to get a good tip?”

“Oh I’m sure he would love your tip,” he says, barely able to contain his laughter.

Patrick gives David’s arm a hard backhanded slap, but he doesn't seem to register it through his cackles.

John Travolta’s Asian doppelganger drops off their drinks and Patrick swears he winks at him before moving down the bar to help other customers. 

“So this is why you brought me here? To see how many guys check me out?”

“Oh I’ve already lost count of how many guys have eyed you since we walked through the door.”

“Very funny.”

“Not a joke,” David insists. “You’ve got this clean cut, boyish charm thing going on that’s actually pretty rare in this neighborhood. Like they could take you home for a good time and you’d end up fixing their garbage disposal while you’re there.”

Patrick takes a sip of his drinks and finds that the bartender really went heavy on the whiskey and light on the coke. “So you’re saying I look like a plumber?”

“Not a plumber. Just...handy.” The way he cocks his eyebrow at Patrick makes him suspect he’s remembering exactly what Patrick’s hands were able to do to him that morning. 

The thought, combined with the heavy pour of whiskey, gives Patrick a little courage to reach a hand over and place it on David’s thigh, just above his knee. David looks down at the hand and smirks.

“And just what do you think you’re doing with that?” he asks.

Patrick shrugs. “Being handy.”

David opens his mouth to reply but Patrick doesn’t get to hear it as he feels a body slam lightly into his back. He turns around to see what hit him and is greeted by the sight of a tall, broad chested man who looked not unlike a bearded version of the Brawny paper towel guy. He smiles down apologetically at Patrick.

“Sorry about that,” he says in a surprisingly smooth baritone. 

Patrick is so taken aback by the human embodiment of testosterone before him that it takes him a second to remember that he does actually know how to speak. “N-no worries,” he stammers.

The Brawny man flashes him a smile and says, “Let me buy you a drink.”

Patrick feels David’s leg shift beneath his hand and he looks back at him. He’s staring impassively at his own drink, but Patrick swears he sees the corners of his lips twitching.

He turns back to Brawny. “Umm, I’m good actually. Just poured one.”

Brawny looks down at Patrick’s half empty glass, then over at David. “Suit yourself,” he says, and melts back into the crowd.

“Don’t say anything,” Patrick warns David without even looking at him. 

“I wasn’t gonna.”

Patrick drains his glass and the music shifts to an ABBA number upstairs. “David, please tell me you didn’t bring me here just to watch me get picked up by another guy.”

“Oh God no,” David says, looking mildly horrified. “Besides, if you went home with him I don’t think you’d be able to walk tomorrow. It’d make sightseeing pretty uncomfortable.”

“I’m serious,” Patrick insists, though the insistence is slightly undercut his own laughter.

“So am I! Unless you’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to fuck Paul Bunyan, in which case, by all means.” He gestures to the room full of men behind them.

Patrick shoots him a level glare and David puts his hands up in surrender. “Only joking.”

“Come on David, why are we here?”

David hesitates for a beat before answering, and Patrick worries there really is a less than innocent motive for them being here. “Because I used to like coming here when I was younger,” David finally says. “Even with the shitty theme nights and overpriced cover charge, I liked having a place where I knew I had at least one thing in common with every single person there.”

The answer catches Patrick off guard. It’s definitely better than the idea that he brought him here just to watch him squirm. David may not have much in the way of tact, but he has far more potential for kindness than Patrick thinks he gives himself credit for.

“Thank you David. That’s actually really...well - ”

“Hold on, before you start feeling _too_ grateful, part of me did one hundred percent want to watch you get hit on by a bunch of really hot guys.”

“ _What?_ Why?”

David, looking only mildly ashamed of himself, places a hand on Patrick’s knee and gives it a squeeze. “Two reasons - one selfless, the other not so much. First, because you’ve spent a lot of years in the closet and I didn’t want you to think that you’d screwed yourself by waiting so long to come out. You’ve been here for ten minutes and I’ve already seen like fifty guys check you out. Say the magic word and I’m pretty sure that bartender will take you out back right now and suck your dick like you’ve got diamonds at the bottom of your balls.”

“That’s nice. Graphic, but nice.”

“I just wanted you to know that you didn’t miss the boat. There’s a whole yacht and it’s permanently docked and filled with guys who would kill for a chance to be with you.”

Patrick thinks to himself that he doesn’t want a yacht full of guys. He wants a rowboat with David in it.

And that is not the kind of thing he can let himself think right now. It had taken all the balls he could muster just to ask David to spend the rest of his trip with him. He’d bought himself two more nights, but he couldn’t let himself think beyond that. He’s getting on a plane come Monday morning and David is staying in New York, because they’re adults with lives and jobs and responsibilities, not characters in a poorly constructed rom-com.

“And the selfish reason?” Patrick asks.

David leans in even though Patrick had no trouble hearing him before. “I like the fact that no matter how hot the guys are that hit on you, you’re coming home with me tonight.”

The words send a shiver up his spine. David coolly sips his drink like he’d said something as innocent as asking Patrick for the time. Patrick wants to ask if that means they can head home right away, but now that he knows David’s motivations for bringing him here, he wants to say he gave it a fair shake.

“I’m going to find a bathroom, order me another drink will you?”

David gives him a nod and gestures to the back right corner of the room. Patrick cuts across the lounge area and steals a glance at the patrons seated there. It’s mostly small groups of three or four, some holding conversations, some scrolling through their phones looking bored.

On one of the couches tucked back in the corner nearest the restroom, Patrick spots a couple entwined with one another. They’re making out like they’ve completely forgotten they’re out in public, or maybe they just don’t care, and he sees one man’s hand inching up the other’s thigh. Despite their choice of venue, Patrick feels like he’s invading their privacy and makes himself look away. 

He pushes open the door of the bathroom at the same time someone on the other side pulls it, sending the other man stumbling back.

Patrick catches him by the arm and steadies him. “Shit, sorry! You okay?”

The man gets his balance back and straightens up. He’s a full head taller than Patrick, with shoulder length hair so blonde it's almost white. He could easily wander into any movie studio in the world and get cast as a viking in a heartbeat. He’s wearing a pair of high waisted white pants and a skin tight black button button up shirt.

“Fine,” he says, smoothing his hands over his pants, and Patrick actually does hear a Scandinavian lilt to his voice. 

_Shit, he really is a viking._

The viking finally looks at Patrick and he sees his eyes giving him a quick once over. “No worries.”

Patrick just nods and tries to slide past him but the viking takes a step and he basically fills the entire doorway. “You can make it up to me with a dance,” he suggests with a smile. 

Patrick is once more overcome with the feeling of being examined under a microscope and hears himself chuckle awkwardly. “I’m a terrible dancer.”

“A drink then?” he asks, undeterred.

Patrick glances back at the bar. He can’t see David from back here, but he knows he’s there. He’d probably get a kick out of this - a viking and Paul Bunyan in one night. “I’m, uh - I’m actually with my…”

“Ah, your boyfriend?”

Patrick feels himself flush and is grateful for the dim lighting in the hall. “No, he’s not - we’re not - I’m just here with someone.”

“Someone?” the viking repeats doubtfully. “Sounds serious.”

Patrick doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just lifts his shoulders in a shrug and offers what he hopes is an apologetic smile. The viking doesn’t look particularly offended by the rejection and steps aside to let Patrick into the restroom. “Come find me if you change your mind about that dance,” he calls over his shoulder as the door swings closed. 

**

“Alright, you win,” Patrick admits as he takes his seat at the bar. 

“Sorry, what?”

“I got hit on in the bathroom, and I’m also ninety percent sure that a guy who looked old enough to be my dad pinched my ass on my way back to the bar.”

A massive grin splits across David’s face. “Was it that Alexander Skarsgard look-alike I saw coming out of there?”

“I don’t know who that is, but if he looked like his name could be Thor then yes.”

“Lovely. Not the ass pinching part, that’s just uncouth, but I knew you could clean up here.”

The idea of actually going home with any of the men who’d made passes at him doesn’t thrill Patrick nearly as much as it seems to thrill David. He realizes he’s set a dangerous precedent for himself - he’s only comfortable sleeping with a guy after three hours of forced isolation and conversation. Not an easy scenario to replicate in a bar.

“I have a question,” Patrick announces.

“Oh?”

“It’s a sex thing.”

David’s brows shoot up with interest. “Sure.”

“It’s, uh, a...sex with men thing.”

“... _okay_.”

Patrick takes a large sip from his drink and finds it contains a slightly tamer amount of whiskey this time. “How do you know, like when you meet someone here, and you want to - I mean if you’re thinking of sleeping with them then how - ”

“Are you trying to ask me how to tell if someone is a top or a bottom before you fuck them?”

Patrick wishes he had said that a little quieter as the couple to David’s left shoots Patrick a look. “I guess? I don’t know, I didn’t even mean it that specifically. Just - how do you know what they’re into?”

“The same way you do with anybody, man or woman - you ask.”

“Before you even take them home?”

“I mean, it’s not super romantic, but it’ll save you the time and the cab fare if you can find out if there’s a deal breaker early on.”

Patrick wonders when he would have been able to fit that kind of conversation in with the viking, who seemed a lot more interested in dancing than talking. As with a lot of things he’s considered doing in the past twenty-four hours, it’s easier to imagine doing them with David.

“So what are your deal breakers then?”

David tilts his head at him, and drops his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You know you’re not picking me up right? This - ,” he gestures between the two of them, “ - is in the bag already.”

“I know that, I just…I want to know what you like and what you don’t like. I want to make sure that you’re getting something out of this too. That I’m not just using you for a weekend.”

“Patrick, I’ve been used before. Trust me, it’s usually not this much fun.”

Patrick wants to ask him what he meant when he said he’d been used before, but the topic screams ‘mood killer’. He presses on with his original question instead.

“Well will you at least tell me if there’s anything you really don’t like? So I don’t accidentally try something that you hate and then we have to have this exact conversation except naked?”

David smirks in a way that Patrick takes to mean he’s humoring him. “Okay, I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone ‘accidentally’ stumble into hardcore bondage or humiliation.” 

Patrick gulps hard at David’s flippant mention of two kinks he knows nothing about but sound mildly terrifying based purely off their names. He hopes David didn’t notice any slip in his composure.

“Anything else?"

“Patrick, you don’t - ”

“Please. You told me all I had to do was ask.”

David pokes at the lime floating at the bottom of his glass and sighs, apparently ready to eat his own words. 

“Okay - I don’t like pain, outside of maybe some spanking on certain occasions. Nothing with blood or urine. No gagging or choking. I find roleplay to be pretty awkward, but I’m not, like, forbidding it. But definitely no calling me ‘daddy’ in the middle of sex. Not shaming you if that’s your thing, it just makes me think of my father and nothing kills an erection faster than Johnny Rose. And I don’t like feet. I’m not saying you have to keep your socks on or anything, I’m just very ticklish and I once broke a girl’s nose who decided to get a little handsy down there. Kicked her right in the face.”

He takes a deep breath and glances over at Patrick, probably expecting to have scared the hell out of him. Patrick stares back, trying to maintain as neutral an expression as possible, which isn’t actually all that hard given that there wasn’t a single thing on that list that he had any interest in anyway. Well, he might have a follow up question about the spanking thing, but that could wait for now.

“Okay,” he says, and takes a sip of his drink.

“Okay?” David asks disbelievingly. 

“Other than the part where you broke that girl’s nose, I’m good with all that.”

“Oh...okay. That’s, ummm...that’s good then.”

“And what about what you like?”

At that the nervousness slips out of David’s face completely. “There’s not a single thing you’ve done to me that I haven’t liked, so I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

Patrick puts his hand on David’s thigh where he’d had it earlier and squeezes gently. “I wasn't actually all that worried.”

“No?”

“Nope,” he laughs softly. “I was thinking more along the lines of things you want me to do to you. Things I haven’t done yet.”

“Oh, so this is you trying to figure out if I’m a top or a bottom?”

“If that’s important to you.”

David looks at him appraisingly. “It depends actually.”

“On?”

“Who I’m with. Bottoming takes a lot of trust. You’re basically letting this other person take control of everything. Which can be _really_ hot, but it’s not something I usually even consider with a random hook up.”

“Am I random?”

“No. I think there’s a god of elevators somewhere out in the universe who really wanted you to end up in my bed.”

“Hmm, let me know if he has a holiday coming up, I really should thank him,” Patrick teases. “So you’re kind of a switch hitter then?”

David’s expression sours a little. “I don’t know what that means, but it sounds like a sports thing.”

Patrick laughs at how disgruntled David gets from just a single analogy. “It is a sports thing. A batter who can hit from either side of the plate.”

David flaps his hand dismissively. “I’ll have to take your word for it, I don’t play cricket.”

“So you like a lot of things, but you don’t like them with every single partner?”

“Correct.” 

“Okay, I get that. Will you tell me if there’s something you’d like to do with me?”

David nods. “I can do that.”

“I have one last question for you.”

“Hmm?”

“Can we please get the hell out of here?”

  
  


**

If it wouldn’t have tanked David’s Uber rating, Patrick probably would have had his way with him in the car on the drive home. But given the fact that he’s a thirty year old man and doesn’t want to get arrested for indecent exposure, he manages to keep himself in check until David closes the apartment door behind them.

They’re on each other in an instant, Patrick crowding against David and pulling him down into a kiss until they’re falling on to the couch in a tangle of limbs and half removed coats.

  
  


They break apart long enough to toss aside their jackets and then David lips are back on his, his tongue sliding into Patrick’s mouth. They’ve somehow ended up side by side which isn’t nearly close enough for Patrick’s liking. He tugs at David’s arm until he finally seems to get the idea and crawls into Patrick’s lap. He straddles Patrick’s waist and the weight of him combined with the feel of his cock pressing hard into Patrick’s stomach sends a wave of heat through him. He slips his hands around David's ass and squeezes him. He pulls David even closer to him and his hips thrust up to meet him. A small gasp escapes from David’s mouth and into Patrick’s, who takes it as a sign of encouragement.

He repeats the move - pulling David down while rolling his hips up into him - and is greeted with another gasp. So he does it again. And again. Soon he’s not even the one moving David anymore; David is grinding down into him, hard and steady, and it’s all Patrick can do to hold on and match his pace. Their kisses grow messy and frantic, and Patrick knows that if this goes on for much longer there’s a very real chance he’ll come before either of them get their clothes off.

It’s David who pulls back first, breaking the kiss and putting a hand on Patrick’s chest. His breathing is heavy and his lips are bruised red. Rather than look at Patrick, he squeezes his eye shut.

“What’s wrong?” asks Patrick.

“Nothing,” he replies, still out of breath. “Nothing, it’s just…” He shakes his head, either unwilling or unable to finish his thought.

Patrick cups a hand against David’s face until he opens his eyes again. “Tell me.”

“That might not be a good idea.”

“Not going to know unless you say it.” He runs a thumb against David’s lip and feels his body tremble a little at the touch. He has a feeling that David is holding something back for his sake, and all he wants is to feel David moving against him again.

“It’s, uh...this position - ”

Patrick pushes against David’s hands to lay a kiss on his neck, then another. “You don’t like it?” he asks against his skin.

“No, definitely not that - ”

Patrick rolls his hips up again and the movement stops David mid-sentence. 

He slides his hands back down to David’s ass. “Seems like you like it.” 

David pulls away again but this time his eyes are wide open. “You can’t keep doing that unless you’re going to fuck me.”

Patrick is stunned by David’s declaration. Why in the hell would he not want to tell him _that_?

“Okay then - let's do that.”

“No, see, that’s why I didn’t want to say anything. You don’t have to - ”

“I want to. I want to so fucking bad.” He’s kissing David’s neck again, desperate to touch as much of him as he can. He goes to grab the bottom of David’s sweater when he feels hands tighten around his wrists.

“Not on the couch.”

**

Their clothes lie strewn on the floor with the exception of David’s sweater, which he had insisted on taking the time to hang up. They’re in almost the exact same position they were on the couch, only now Patrick is sat up against the headboard and one of his hands is lightly stroking David’s cock between them. David kisses him soft and slow, and Patrick can feel him shudder as his fingers ghost across the head and trail back down.

“Show me how,” Patrick breathes against David’s lips. 

David pulls back far enough to look him in the eye and gives him a nervous smile. “This is the part that usually involves some preparation. I can do it myself if you want - ”

“No,” Patrick insists, a little more forcefully than he’d intended. “I want to know.”

David nods and leans over to reach into his nightstand. He comes back holding a small bottle of lube. “Lesson one,” he says softly, “is that _this_ is your best friend. There’s no such thing as too much of it, and you kind of just need to accept that it’s probably going to end up everywhere.”

Patrick chuckles and takes the bottle. “So you’re saying we should put down a tarp.”

“No, I’m saying I keep a clean set of bedding around for a reason. Okay, so this is a silicone based lube. Great for sex, not great for toys, but that’s another conversation entirely.”

The mention of toys threatens to spiral Patrick’s mind off in a million directions, and he forces himself to stay focused. “Great for sex, got it.”

“Lesson two, go slow. No matter how much you want to skip to the main event, literally nothing bad comes from taking your time.”

Patrick puts the bottle of lube down on the bed next to them and runs his hands up David’s arms. “Do you usually call it ‘the main event’?”

David tries to glare at him but the corners of his lips twitch with a smile. “Do you usually make jokes at really inappropriate moments?”

“Almost always.” David leans down to kiss him, which turns into them making out, and it takes them a minute to remember that they’d been in the middle of a fairly important conversation and separate themselves. 

“I have an idea,” David says a little hesitantly.

“I’m a big fan of your ideas so far,” Patrick replies and reaches up to kiss him again, but David puts a hand out to stop him.

“I was thinking that there are some things you can really only learn by doing.”

“Doing? As in…”

“I’m not going to fuck you,” David says reassuringly. “That was kind of the opposite goal of what I had in mind. I just meant the getting ready part. I want to know how it should feel. How to make it good.”

Patrick tries to talk but the words aren’t coming easily to him with David’s weight settled so heavily on this lap. He manages a nod, and that seems to be enough for David.

He climbs off of Patrick who almost groans at the loss, but then David’s kissing him and his thoughts quickly move elsewhere.

David props himself up beside Patrick and tells him to lay down. His hands feel like they’re everywhere, all at once - touching his arms, his chest, legs. He gently pulls up one of Patrick’s legs and Patrick knows it’s to give him easier access down there. The only place he’s not touching is Patrick’s cock, which juts out hard and wanting between them. 

David has settled his lips on his favorite part of Patrick’s neck and Patrick is lost in the feeling of it. He hardly notices one of David’s hands disappearing, or the soft click of a bottle opening. But then he feels David’s hand - _finally_ \- wrap itself around Patrick’s cock, and it’s cool and slick and he remembers David’s plan.

David keeps his lips on Patrick’s neck while he pumps him up and down, neither too firm or too soft, with no real rhythm. After only a few seconds of it the feeling starts to drive Patrick insane, and he thrusts up into David’s hand, desperate for a stronger touch. Instead of obliging, David moves his hands down to Patrick’s balls and gives them a gentle squeeze before moving even farther down. 

The feeling of David’s finger brushing against him doesn’t surprise Patrick the way it did last night. After having David’s mouth on him in the shower, he’s actually been craving this feeling all day. David rubs his finger against Patrick’s rim, spreading the lube there, and Patrick squirms under his touch. He knows he wants more, but he can’t even begin to describe what it is he wants more of. David must be able to tell how desperate Patrick is getting, because he finally relents and presses the finger into him. He doesn’t go very deep at first, just dipping the tip of his index finger in and out, but the feeling of it sends a shock wave up Patrick’s spine. 

Patrick’s eyes are screwed shut and the only thing anchoring him to his body is the feel of David’s finger which is now sliding in deeper, just past the first knuckle. David slowly fucks his finger into him, pulling back and pushing in a little further each time, until it’s finally seated completely inside him.

“How are you doing Patrick?” David asks, and his voice is a million miles away.

Patrick knows he should answer, but David hasn’t stopped moving his finger and his voice dies in his throat. David’s finger goes still, and his voice is a little firmer now. “Patrick? Going to need you to talk to me.”

“G-g-good. I’m good. More.” It’s all he can manage, but it gets his message across fine. David resumes the motion of his finger, and Patrick reaches down to touch himself. David carefully slips out of him and places his hand over Patrick’s. 

“Not yet,” he says. “Just pay attention to what I’m doing, how it feels.”

Patrick finally opens his eyes and looks over at David, who offers him a gentle smile. “Still good?”

“Great.” 

David grabs the bottle of lube again and squeezes more on to his fingers. “Ready for two?” he asks, and Patrick wants to tell him he can skip straight to fucking him right now if he really wants to, but then he remembers himself. He’s supposed to be learning how to do this for David.

Patrick feels him press against his entrance once more, this time with a second finger. It takes more pressure this time and there’s greater stretch, but then he’s sinking into him and it feels incredible. 

“You’re doing so good,” David whispers into his ear. “I can’t wait to have you do this to me.”

The idea of touching David like this, of actually being inside of him, causes Patrick to actually push down on to David’s fingers on his own. David takes that as a sign that he can increase his pace a little, and he starts to fuck Patrick with his fingers, slow but firm. Just when he feels almost completely used to the sensation of having David’s finger inside of him, David gently curls the tips of his fingers upward, and the way they brush against him is like an electric shock. “Fuck!” he shouts, the curse tearing its way out of his throat. “Fuck David, what the - ”

“Lesson three,” David says. “The prostate - a wonderful little spot inside of you, but a little goes a long way. For now at least.”

Patrick pushes himself down madly on to David’s fingers, searching for that feeling again. “David please,” he begs.

“Almost Patrick. We’re almost there.” He slides his fingers out again and it leaves Patrick feeling empty. He wants to demand that he put them back, but he’s worried he sounds desperate enough as it is.

Patrick hears the click of a cap once more, but this time he feels a cool drip directly on his hole. He figures this is what David meant when he said there was no such thing as too much lube. “I’m going to try three now, okay? If it’s too much, just tell me.”

“I will.”

David’s fingers push against him, and this time there’s a small burn to his touch that wasn’t there before. He doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until he hears David’s voice telling him to breath. “Relax Patrick. You can touch yourself.”

Patrick doesn’t know how to force himself to relax when all he can feel is the stretch and slide of David’s fingers in him, but he lets out the breath he’d been holding in and tries. He reaches down and takes his cock in his hand. There’s still lube there from when David had grabbed him, and his hand slides easily up and down the shaft. 

David works three fingers into him, much the way he did the first one - a little in, a little out, waiting for Patrick’s body to accommodate him before slipping in deeper. Patrick finds himself stroking his cock in rhythm with David’s thrusts, and before long the burning sensation slips away entirely. It’s replaced by an incredible feeling of fullness that waxes and wanes with the movement of David’s hands. 

For not the first time this weekend, and probably not the last, Patrick marvels at how he could have made it so long without knowing that anything could feel like this. That _he_ could feel like this. 

David is fucking all three fingers into him now, and Patrick’s hand tightens around his cock and keeps pace. “You asked me earlier what I like.” David’s breath is hot against his ear. “I like this. I like watching you get off, I like watching you touch yourself, I like all of this.”

“ _Fuck David_.” Hearing him say stuff like that is almost doing more for him than his fingers. “You have to stop if you want me to fuck you.”

David’s hand stills almost immediately, and Patrick releases his grip on himself. They’re both breathing heavily, and neither of them seems to enjoy the moment when David has to pull out of Patrick. Patrick pulls him into a deep and hungry kiss, fisting his hair tight the way he knows David loves.

“Your turn,” he says, letting him go and reaching for the lube. “Lie back.”

He pours what he thinks is probably an over-generous amount of lube on to his fingers and decides to take the same approach as David did by reaching first for his dick. David is already harder than Patrick thinks he’s ever felt him, and he’s restless under Patrick’s hand. Patrick only works his shaft for a few strokes before moving lower, and pressing a finger against his hole. 

“Yes,” David hisses as soon as he makes contact. He pushes in, meeting only a small amount of resistance, before the tip of his finger slips past the ring of muscle and into David. He tries to work his way in slowly as David did, but David is pushing himself down on to Patrick’s finger like he just can’t help himself. “More,” he pleads.

“What happened to taking my time?” He works his finger into him harder.

David bites down on his lip hard enough that it turns white. “Mmhmm,” he moans. “I did say that. And I - _fuck_ \- I meant it. But this isn’t my first time around the block, and I really need you to fuck me here, so you don’t have to - _oh my god_!”

Patrick slips out almost completely and quickly adds a second finger before driving back into David. If David wants to get fucked, Patrick is more than happy to oblige. One of David’s hands finds its way to Patrick’s hip and digs into skin there. It’s hard enough that he’ll probably have some decent finger-sized bruises there tomorrow, but he doesn’t care. He’s too busy feeling David come undone around his fingers to notice.

But then that hand is pushing him back and his fingers slip out of David. Before he can register what’s happening, he’s on his back with David straddling his hips. He’s got a tiny foil pack in his hand and fire in his eyes. 

“Can’t wait anymore,” he says by way of apology. 

Patrick reaches out for the condom and David pushes his hand away. “I’ve got it.” He rolls the condom over Patrick in one smooth and practiced motion and uses the lube to slick him up. David tosses the bottle aside and places a hand on Patrick’s chest for balance. He uses the other to grab hold of his cock and hold it steady as he guides himself down on to it.

Patrick feels his head press against David’s hole and groans at even that small contact.

“Are you okay?” David asks, holding himself frozen above him.

“Yeah I’m good, just - ” David drops down slowly and Patrick slips inside him. He throws his head back into the pillow and whatever else was going to say is lost to the sensation of David working his body down on to his cock, inch by agonizing inch.

David’s ass settles fully on to Patrick hips, and Patrick knows he’s bottomed out. David is so incredibly hot and tight around him, and Patrick thinks he wants to spend the rest of his life here, buried in David, taking his weight. 

“Sorry,” David says, with a look of utter satisfaction on his face. “You were saying?”

“Fuck you,” Patrick laughs. 

David leans down to kiss him and Patrick can still feel the smile on his lips when he does. He pulls away and braces both of his hands against him. “If you say so,” he replies, and begins to work himself up and down on Patrick’s cock. 

He sets a slow pace, drawing himself all the way up to the point where Patrick thinks he’s going to slip out of him entirely, before dropping back down hard. David’s eyes are closed and his brows are knit together in concentration, like all he can focus on is the feel of Patrick inside him.

Patrick is torn between agony and ecstasy. Being inside David is like nothing he’s ever felt before, but it’s not enough. He wants to do what David asked him to do in the first place - he wants to fuck him. He wants to drive into him and make him cry his name and beg for him and these are not things he’s ever wanted from anyone but he wants - _needs_ \- them now.

He digs his hands into David’s hips to stop his movement. “David?” 

David’s eyes fly open and he looks bewildered by Patrick stopping him. “What’s wrong?” he asks breathlessly.

“Nothing,” he says. “I just wanted to double check - you said something about it being really hot when someone else takes control?”

The confusion disappears from David’s face and is replaced by a wicked grin. “I might have mentioned that, yeah.”

“Cool, just checking.” Then in one swift move, he draws one of his legs up for leverage and pushes off the bed. Their bodies roll as one and in a matter of seconds Patrick has David pinned to the mattress, his cock still buried inside him.

“How the fuck - ”

“I wrestled in high school.”

“Okay, so that’s something we’re definitely going to dive into later - ”

“David?” Patrick cuts him off, and begins to rock his hips back and forth. Only an inch or so, but enough that he knows David can feel it.

“Mmm?”

“What did you want me to do to you?” 

David shakes his head like he can’t bring himself to speak and Patrick stills his movements. “I like hearing you talk David.” He captures his lips in a quick kiss. “So I’m going to need to hear you say it. What do you want me to do to you?”

“F-f-f-fuck me,” David demands, barely a whisper, but it’s enough for Patrick.

He pulls back almost completely and slams back into David. He worries briefly that it was too rough, but David arches underneath him and practically screams his name and he knows David can take it.

Patrick sets a hard and unceasing pace, driving his cock into David with abandon. He doesn’t know what’s come over him. He’s never lost control like this during sex. Even last night, he’d forced himself to maintain a degree of control, not to thrust too hard or too fast into David’s mouth.

But now David’s under him and he’s taking Patrick’s cock so beautifully. He can actually feel David’s hips meeting him thrust for thrust, and he wonders if this is what David meant when he said the Brawny guy would have left Patrick too sore to walk tomorrow, but if this is too much for David then he’s refusing to show it.

“Fuck me Patrick, fuck me, give it to me, _fuck_.” It's a stream of consciousness that flows from David's mouth and seems to center on the idea of David wanting more. Patrick isn’t sure how he could give him any more than he already is, but then he grabs hold of the back of David’s knees and pushes his legs up, and Patrick slips in even deeper than he thought was possible. David _yowls_ and his hands grab tight fistfuls of sheets. 

Patrick knows he’s close and that David isn’t far behind, but he doesn’t know if he can get him there first. He doesn’t want to let go of his legs and risk changing his pace. “Fuck David,” he moans through gritted teeth. “Touch yourself. Please, I want to see you. Make yourself come.”

David, who has gone nonverbal since the shift in position, can only nod and wraps a hand around his own cock. He works himself hard and fast and Patrick can feel him start to tighten around his cock and it tips him over the edge. 

“David - I’m going to - fuck David - going to - ” He slams into David one last time and then he’s falling off a cliff with no parachute. He loses sense of time and direction. Nothing else in the world exists except for the feeling of David wrapped around him, whose muscles dance and twitch with his own orgasm, wave after wave pulsing through him.

And then it’s over, and reality slowly sleeps back into his senses. He collapses forward, his head falling on to David’s chest. The only sound in the room for the next minute is that of their own heavy breathing. 

“Where, “ David’s voice comes from beneath him, “the _fuck_ did that come from?”

Patrick immediately pulls back with concern. “Are you okay?” he asks. “Did I - was I too rough?”

He’s surprised when David starts laughing. “Are you kidding me? I’m going to feel that for a week, it was _perfect._ ”

“So - wait, you’re okay? I didn’t - ”

“Patrick, you did exactly what I asked you to. Very well, I might add. And if you don’t get that condom off soon, things are going to get very uncomfortable for you here very fast.”

As soon as David says it, Patrick can feel what he means. “Two seconds,” he says, slipping out of David with a sigh and making for the bathroom. He cleans himself up and catches a look at his reflection in the mirror. His cheeks are red and his hair is mussed and David has indeed left some nice bruises on his hips. But his eyes are clear, and they stare back at him unflinchingly.

_Expecting someone else_? they seem to ask.

  
But it’s only him, just as it’s always been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it entirely realistic that Patrick would be a damn sex god right out of the gate like that? Probably not. Did I enjoy writing him that way because I think his character deserves the win? Absolutely.


	15. Things end

David wakes up wondering why the hell his pillow is so hot. It feels like he fell asleep on a heating pad. It takes a second to register that his head isn’t on a pillow - it’s on Patrick. His chest, specifically. 

He opens his eyes and finds himself wrapped around Patrick like a baby chimp in a nature documentary that gets piggyback rides from the adults. Except he’s not a chimp, he’s a grown man, and he’s got at least five inches and thirty pounds on the guy he’s wrapped himself around.

Patrick is already awake. He’s scrolling through his phone with the hand that’s not currently trapped under David. “Morning sunshine,” he says, not even looking away from his screen. 

“How’d you know I was awake?”

“You stopped snoring.”

David lifts his head up and looks at him sternly. “I do _not_.”

Patrick finally looks away from his phone. “You sounded like someone trying to start a lawnmower,” he says with a deadpan expression. 

David does the only thing he can think of. A very undignified thing that Alexis used to do to him when they were teenagers and she was trying to get something from him out of him. He grabs Patrick’s nipple and twists.

“Ow!” Patrick yelped. “Okay, shit, uncle! You don’t snore!” 

David immediately lets go and drops a kiss on the site of his attack. “I want you to know I’m not proud of what I just did, but you drove me to it.”

“I’ll remember that the next time you want me to touch yours. Yeah, don't think I didn’t notice how much you enjoy that.”

David, who is already sporting a slight case of morning wood, feels his cock twitch at the thought of Patrick teasing his nipples. He pushes the thought aside. If they start going at it now, there’s a good chance they’ll never make it out of this bed. David doesn’t actually have any personal objections to that idea, but this is Patrick’s last full day in New York, and he suspects he’d like to see more interesting sights than the inside of David’s apartment.

He looks over to the window and finds the weather is continuing its streak of wind and rain. He thinks that Patrick will have to come back sometime when the weather is nicer, but his stomach clenches at the thought. He’s never going to make it through today if he allows his mind to go down that path. He rolls back over.

“How long have I been sleeping like this?”

“You mean how long have you been using me as a human body pillow? I don't know. You were like this when I woke up, maybe half an hour ago?”

“You should've woken me up.”

Patrick shrugs as though the idea didn’t even occur to him. “You looked comfortable.”

He leans down to kiss David but David puts a hand up to stop him.

“Ugh, no, I have morning breath.”

“What a coincidence,” Patrick says, pushing his hand aside. “So do I.”

He keeps the kiss fairly chaste though, sparing them both some unpleasantness.

“So what’s on the menu for today?” he asks David. 

David grabs his phone to check the time - 10 AM. Perfect.

“Funny you should mention menus.”

**

“I’m not saying they’re not good.”

“Yeah, because they’re not just _good_. They’re heaven in the form of a pancake.”

“Okay, that’s a bit much.”

“You’re a bit much,” David mutters under his breath.

Patrick raises an eyebrow at him. “Seriously?”

David doesn’t understand how Patrick can be so blase about Bubby’s lemon ricotta pancakes, but given how he attempted to butter his bagel yesterday, he’s also not surprised.

“Okay, so that may have come out a bit harsher than I meant it too, but I stand by my claim - _heaven_.” He pauses to add what some have told him is an excessive amount of sugar to his coffee. “It’s why I come here on Sunday mornings instead of church.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s the only reason,” Patrick says through a mouthful of bacon. 

David has decided it’s best to ignore when Patrick teases him. It doesn’t discourage him entirely - nothing really seems to do that - but it’s better than trying to go blow for blow. Patrick is the rubber and David is the glue in this dynamic. 

David spears another chunk of pancake on to his fork. His eyes close as soon as it touches his tongue, and he enjoys every note of it - the perfect density of the dough, the bitter tang of the lemon compote, the sweet undercurrent of the powdered sugar dusted evenly over each cake. What could possibly be ‘a bit much’ about this?

David opens his eyes to find Patrick staring at him with a funny little smirk on his face.

“What?”

“Nothing, I just don't think I’ve ever met anyone who enjoys food the way you do.”

“Who doesn’t enjoy food? I mean, aside from yourself.” He points his fork at Patrick’s barely touched stack of pancakes. Patrick rolls his eyes and passes the whole plate over to David, who wants to object, but also doesn’t want to see them go to waste. 

“You don’t just eat your food though, you _savor_ it. Seriously, I’ve seen the faces you make during sex, they’re basically the same ones you made when you took that bite.”

A waitress comes by and tops off their coffees without being asked, and David grabs the bowl of sugar to correct his ratio once more. 

“Well, much like with sex, I happen to think people should be much more discerning about what they put in their mouths. And I’m trying not to be too offended by the fact that you’d probably be just as happy at a Denny’s right now.”

“I didn’t say that,” Patrick objects. “I just said that I like a simple pancake. Keep it to the basics, maybe some blueberries or chocolate chips if you’re feeling adventurous. And use real maple syrup, none of the corn syrup crap Americans seem so fond of. Why do my pancakes need ricotta cheese in them?”

“Nothing technically _needs_ anything. We could all survive on those weird soylent shakes if we had to, but given the choice between that and putting ricotta cheese in pancake batter, then I’m taking the ricotta.”

Patrick reaches over with his fork and takes back a single pancake from the stack he’d offered David. “Fair enough,” he says, taking a large bite.

“Did I just win an argument?”

“Yeah, about pancakes.”

“But I still won.”

“Yes, in the sense that I’m eating one of your pancakes to get you to shut up about it, you’ve won.”

David scoops the last bite off his plate and into his mouth. “Was that so hard?”

There are few things David loves more than being right. It’s the lemon ricotta pancake of emotions to him. So it’s an uneasy feeling for him when he discovers he’s not getting the usual satisfaction out of Patrick’s concession that he normally would. He sips his coffee and listens to Patrick rattle off the list of places he’s already seen in the city and the things he still wants to visit, but in the back of his mind he can’t stop trying to figure out what makes this time so different from all the others. And then it clicks - it wasn’t that he didn’t like hearing Patrick admit he was right; it was that he enjoyed arguing with him even more. 

_He’s leaving_ , a small but bitter voice says from somewhere in the back of his head.

_I know that._

_Do you really?_

“David?” This voice isn’t in his head.

David looks up from his mug to find Patrick looking at him with an expression of mild concern. “Sorry - what?”

“You kind of zoned out there for a minute. Where’d you go?”

David shakes his head. “Nowhere. I was just thinking of places you should see for your - umm, while you’re still here.”

_Just because you don’t say it doesn’t stop it from being true_ , the voice chides.

_Fuck off._

“Any good ideas?”

“Uh, yeah, actually. I am of the personal opinion that if you leave the city without having seen The Met, then you’ve basically wasted a trip to New York.”

He expects Patrick to laugh at him but instead he nods appreciatively. “That’s a pretty strong opinion to have about a museum.”

“It’s a museum worth having a strong opinion about. And they currently have an exhibition running of one of my favorite French artists, so you know...two birds and all that.”

“Not an entirely selfless act on your part then.”

“Do you have something against French artists?”

“Not remotely. I don’t know enough about art to have anything against any artists, let alone ones from a specific country.”

“Well unless you were absolutely dying to take a freezing cold boat ride around the Statue of Liberty, then my vote is for the indoor activity.”

“We could go to Madame Tussauds instead,” Patrick says with a mischievous grin. “That’s indoors.”

“Mmkay, so if you ever dare suggest that to me again, I will take you to Staten Island and I will leave you there, I swear to God.”

Patrick laughs so hard he almost chokes on his last bite of eggs. David flags down the waitress for the check and debates looking up the ferry schedule just in case.

**

“This,” David says as they climb the steps of the museum, “is quite possibly my favorite place in all of New York.”

“Favorite place that doesn’t serve food,” Patrick amends.

“Correct.”

“Can I ask why?”

David doesn’t know where to begin answering that question, so he decides to begin at the beginning. “This is where I fell in love with art.”

“How old were you when you first came here?”

“Five, I think. Maybe six? It’s definitely one of my earliest memories.”

“What do you remember about it?” Patrick asks as he swings open the large glass door for David. 

David steps into the lobby and points upward. “This.”

He looks over just in time to see Patrick’s jaw drop a little as he takes in the golden domes that make up the Met’s Great Hall. Light pours in from every direction, from the bank of windows that run along the eastern face of the building, to the glass skylights atop the roof of each dome. 

“Wow,” Patrick breathes out quietly.

“I told you it was a place worth having an opinion about.”

“You weren’t kidding.”

Patrick moves towards the ticket kiosk but David grabs his arm and redirects him to a shorter line marked specifically for museum members.

“Your parents really brought you here when you were only five years old?” Patrick asks.

“Only my mother, but yeah. For a long time I think this place was the only thing we had in common.” He notices Patrick studying his face closely and it makes him feel weirdly self-conscious. “Why? Is that weird?”

“No, not at all. I’m just impressed you had the patience to walk through an art museum at that age.”

“Well you can thank my mother for that accomplishment. She’s never had an abundance of patience for children, even her own. If I stayed quiet the whole time, I could stay. If I kicked up a fuss, she handed me off to Adelina.”

Patrick looks at him like he just said Moira handed him off to be chained and whipped. “Adelina?”

“Our nanny,” David explains. “Mum worked a lot, and even when she didn’t she was never the most...hands on parent, I guess you could say.”

Patrick shakes his head. “I don’t get it.”

“What?”

“Why have kids if you’re just going to hand them off to someone else the second it comes time to actually be a parent?” Patrick seems to register what he just said and immediately backtracks. “I’m sorry, that’s your mother, I shouldn’t have said - ”

“No,” David stops him. “No, it’s fine. It’s definitely something I’ve wondered about myself.”

He’s never admitted that to anyone - that he doesn’t understand why his parents bothered to have him and Alexis in the first place. He doesn’t begrudge them his childhood - he knows he had it better than most - but he’s long past the point of pretending it was anything close to ‘normal’, even for people with money.

“Any theories then?” Patrick asks.

David shrugs. “My best guess so far is that they did it because it’s what their parents did, and their parents before them, and so on and so forth, all the way back to when we were just monkeys fucking in caves.”

“Your theory involves ‘cave fucking’?”

“I just mean that they did it because they thought it was what they had to do. Like, my parents care about me and my sister, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think they quite knew what they were getting into with us.”

“Well in that case I can sympathize,” Patrick says with a smirk.

“How’s that?”

“I don’t know how anyone could prepare themselves for someone like you.”

David can’t tell if he’s being teased or if Patrick means that as a compliment, but before he can decide the line is moving forward and the attendant is asking for David’s card.

“You don’t have to complain about me paying for you,” David says. “I get a free guest pass with my membership.”

Patrick still looks mildly put out by the gesture. “You know, you haven’t let me pay for a single thing this whole weekend? Not one drink or meal.”

David hands over his membership card to the rather frumpy looking woman manning the counter. “What’s your point?”

“My point is that it doesn’t feel right. It’s like I’m some sort of...I don’t know...kept man.”

The woman hands David his card back and eyes the two of them curiously. David snatches it out of her hand. “Thanks so much!” he says with barely masked sarcasm. 

David hands Patrick a map of the building and points him to the Greek and Roman art section. “Don’t be ridiculous, if you were a kept man I would have bought you a much nicer wardrobe by now.”

**

They wind their way through Greek and African arts before cutting into the European Sculpture Hall. It’s one of David’s favorite rooms in the building, with its entirely plate glass ceiling and an unbelievable collection of Greek and Roman statues. 

David watches Patrick out of the corner of his eye as he slowly makes his way down the hall. They’ve been chatting on and off up until this point, with David offering the occasional bit of trivia or commentary on each exhibit. Patrick rarely has much to contribute beyond pointing out pieces he likes, and even more that he admits he doesn’t remotely understand the appeal of. But the sculptures here seem to have struck a nerve with him.

He stops near the center of the room, in front of Carpeaux’s _Ugolino and His Sons._ David stands next to him and looks up at the expression of anguish on the face of Ugolino, impressed into stone with an incredible level of detail.

“What am I looking at here David?” Patrick asks quietly, as though he were in a library instead of a museum. 

“Ugolino and His Sons. It’s from Dante’s Inferno - a count who was trapped in hell, torn between starving to death and eating his own children.”

“Jesus Christ,” Patrick mutters.

“Mildly horrific backstory aside, it’s still one of my favorite pieces here.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Patrick says, and he gestures at the place where the hand of one of Ugolino’s sons digs into his father’s leg. Every muscle and tendon juts out of the leg, and the hand looks as though it’s digging into actual flesh instead of marble. 

“I take it they don’t have much in the way of art museums in - ” David pauses to think. “You know what? I don’t think you ever actually told me the name of the town you live in.”

Patrick rolls his eyes and turns away from the sculpture. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

An alarm goes off in David’s head, one that signals him to shut down and detach at a moment’s notice. 

“Okay then,” he says coolly. “If you don’t want to tell me where you live, that’s fine.” He walks a few steps ahead of Patrick towards the exhibition gallery.

“Hey, wait,” Patrick calls, speeding up to close the distance between them. “It’s not like that.” He reaches out a hand to stop David, who crosses his arms and tries to maintain a look of cool disinterest.

“What’s it like then?”

Patrick gives him a look tinged with embarrassment. “I was being serious. The town has a...less than dignified name. Half the time I tell people they don’t believe me anyway, at least not until they look it up.”

David searches his face for some sign that Patrick is screwing with him, but it looks as open and honest as it always has. “Try me then,” he says. 

Patrick sticks his hands in his pockets and looks down at the floor. “Schitt’s Creek,” he says quietly.

“What?”

“Schitt’s Creek,” he repeats himself, saying it to David’s face instead of the floor this time. 

“Shit’s Creek?” David says loudly enough that a Japanese tourist walking by with their toddler shoots him a glare. The name twinges a memory somewhere in David’s mind, but he can’t quite place it.

“Yeah,” Patrick sighs, “but not spelled the way you think it is. It’s a family name. They founded the town like, a hundred and fifty years ago.”

“Oh my god.” David puts a hand over his mouth to stop himself from letting out a snort.

“Now you know why I try to avoid bringing it up. Tends to derail conversations.”

“I can imagine,” David laughs. “What’s the road into town called, Skidmark Highway?”

“You’re hilarious,” Patrick says flatly. 

“Is the local hockey team sponsored by Charmin?”

“Okay, I get it.”

“Is your water tower actually a giant toilet bowl?”

Patrick plants a hand on either side of David’s face and fixes him with a level stare. It shuts him right up. “David, you can either cut it out and show me some French art, or I can leave and go look at a building of creepy wax statues of celebrities instead. Your call.”

David narrows his eyes as if it’s a choice that actually takes him some consideration. “Fine. But don’t think for a second that I’m going to forget about this.”

Patrick pats the side of David’s face. “Good to know.”

_**_

The exhibition hall is practically empty. Apparently the number of people willing to brave terrible weather for the lesser known paintings of a two hundred year old dead French dwarf was smaller than David had thought, not that he minds them having the place to themselves.

They wander over to the start of the exhibition, which is actually a series of photos and a small biographical piece on the painter. 

“So who is this guy?” Patrick asks, apparently favoring David’s own knowledge over the museum’s presentation. “Henri de Toul...Tal…

“Toulouse-Lautrec. Didn’t you take French in school?”

“Six years of it. If you need someone to tell you where the bathroom is, I’m your man. You know, so long as the bathroom is in a library or next to a dog.”

“ _Très utile_.”

“ _Foutre le camp_. So, Toulouse-Lautrec?” 

“You want the long version or the short?”

“Dealer’s choice.”

“Right - Henri Toulouse-Latrec. French post-impressionist painter. His growth was stunted thanks to a smattering of inbreeding in his family tree and some less than spectacular healthcare in the eighteen hundreds, leaving him with tiny legs and an over-sized dick.”

“Rough trade.”

“ _Sans blague._ He was born into a wealthy family but never really felt like he belonged, so he decided to become a painter instead. Developed a fondness for prostitutes and absinthe, which probably explains why he ended up dying of a combination of syphilis and alcoholism at thirty-six years old.”

“You know, something tells me that’s what people mean when they say ‘do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life’.”

“But have those people ever tried absinthe?”

“Fair point.” Patrick leans in to get a closer look at a painting featuring a number of women lounging on plush red velvet couches. “The style actually looks kind of familiar, but I can’t place it.”

David pulls out his phone and brings up a picture he has saved of a painted advertisement for the Moulin Rouge.

He hands the phone to Patrick. “This what you were thinking of?”

“Yeah, I knew I recognized it. This is from the movie?”

“The very same. John Legiuzamo actually played him in it, which I have a lot of feelings about so don’t even get me started.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.” He points at the exhibit wall in front of them. “None of these look like the Moulin Rouge paintings.”

“They’re not. These are his brothel paintings.”

“His _what_?”

“I told you he was fond of prostitutes. He liked to hang out in brothels in Paris and paint them. Sometimes the brothels even commissioned paintings from him to hang in their lounges.”

They move down the line and pass by painting after painting of women in various states of undress, none of which are actually particularly sexual. Most of them are lounging on couches or beds, looking tired or bored, some even completely asleep. They stop in front of David’s favorite, _Le lit_. 

It shows two women under a pile of blankets, only their heads peeking out, hair mussed and eyes half closed in the early morning light. They’re looking at one another, and even though you can only make out one of their expressions, it’s clear there’s no place they’d rather be than waking up in that bed together.

“Wow,” David hears Patrick whisper under his breath.

“You like it?”

“I do,” Patrick replies, his voice a little distant. David’s heart hums at the idea that out of all the pieces in the exhibit, Patrick was drawn to his favorite. “He really loved them didn’t he?”

“The prostitutes? Sure, hence the whole dying of syphilis thing.”

“No - I mean, yeah, that too - but like...he _loved_ them. Not just sleeping with them.”

“What makes you say that?” David looks at the couple in the painting again. He’s always been drawn to the affection the two subjects have for one another. He’s never given much thought to what Lautrec felt towards them. 

“I don’t think he could have painted two people looking at each other like that if he didn’t look at them the same way.”

David isn’t sure many of his art history professors from NYU would agree with that, but that also doesn’t make him wrong. “How do you figure?”

“Well, it’s not like taking a photo. I could wander around the city all day, taking a million pictures, and there’s a decent chance I could accidentally capture a really nice moment between two people. They might be at the edge of the frame or slightly out of focus, but I could still catch something sweet without even trying.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“But this isn’t a photo. It’s a painting. He spent hours upon hours working on this, every little detail. The light, their eyes, every hair on their heads. None of it is an accident.”

“There was a painting of a bowl of fruit in the last room. You think that artist just really loved apples?”

Patrick lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “Maybe, maybe not. But I just have a hard time believing that he could have painted two people so in love if he didn’t love them too, even just a little.”

David looks back at the painting, and it’s almost like he’s seeing it for the first time. It’s the difference between reading a romance novel and reading a love letter written to a real person. 

“You know, if that business degree doesn’t work out for you might have a future as an art critic.”

Patrick laughs so loud that it echoes down the cavernous hall. “Very generous of you, but I think I’ll stick to spreadsheets.”

“I’m not joking,” David insists. “I used to have a print of that painting hung up in my apartment for years, and I never saw what you did.”

Patrick shakes his head. “I could never - well, actually I have no idea what you do exactly, but I think we can safely assume I could never do it.”

“I run a gallery. It’s my job to work with artists to cultivate an environment and an aesthetic that best promotes their work.”

“Okay, I recognized some of those words,” Patrick says with a laugh. 

David tries not to roll his eyes at Patrick’s general ignorance of the modern art scene. He rephrases. “I either create or find spaces that best suit an artist’s work. Set the right scene, find the proper mood, and people are more likely to want to come see it.”

“How do you actually make money, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I take a forty percent commission off every sale.” He doesn’t mention how many months he can go without making one, or how his credit cards are paid off every month, but not by him. 

“So what was your most recent show?”

“It was actually a really fascinating series of sculptures from a Dutch artist who goes only by the letter ‘V’. They were life sized models of every Best Actress Oscar winner for the past twenty years, but made exclusively out of melted down Bratz dolls and Legos.”

Patrick stops in his tracks and looks at David with a mixture of bewilderment and disgust. “I’m sorry, I must have misheard. It sounded like you described that as ‘fascinating’ and not ‘horrific’ or, I don’t know, ‘utter crap’.”

David folds his arms across his chest. “Bold words coming from someone who buys his jeans from the same place he gets his groceries and lawn furniture.”

“Not true, I don’t even have a lawn.”

“That was so very much not the point.”

“Oh come on. You can’t tell me that you hold a creepy melted hunk of plastic in the same regard as you do these paintings.” He gestures to the exhibit behind him. “Or any of the artwork in this building for that matter.”

David glares at him, but he doesn’t disagree. The truth is that Patrick's right. He hated V’s creepy ass sculptures. They’d actually featured in a few rather unsettling dreams he’d had during her run at the gallery. He couldn’t really remember the last time he’d taken on an artist whose work he would have willingly purchased for himself.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” he admits, “but it doesn’t really matter what I think of the art. My job is to sell it. A bartender can’t refuse to make you a martini just because he doesn’t care for them - it’s just part of the job.”

Patrick rolls his head back and forth like he’s trying to decide if he buys that answer. “I guess,” he says with very little conviction. “Don’t get me wrong, I get that a job is a job. Everyone’s got to pay their bills.” David shifts uneasily with the knowledge that he’s never actually been at risk of not being able to pay his bills. “But still, wouldn’t it be so much better to actually believe in the stuff you’re selling? I mean it’s your gallery, right? You decide whose art you want to feature.”

“Correct, but I feature what I know I can sell. I know what the market is like, I know the kind of people who are going to come to my openings. If I thought I could make a living off two hundred year old half finished paintings of bored looking French prostitutes then believe me, I would.”

Patrick looks back at the exhibit and smiles. “Well still, thank you for showing me this,” he says. “If you ever decide there’s a market for brothel-based artwork, I’ll be the first person in line at the opening.”

David is almost positive he said that last part just to be nice. He can’t even begin to picture Patrick at one of his gallery openings. It’s like picturing his mother in a pasture full of cows.

But he appreciates it all the same.

**

The rain is still coming down steadily when they leave the museum, having spent the better part of their day there. Patrick had been entranced by the Egyptian Art wing and David had thought he was going to have to drag him out of there if they were ever going to leave. It took the promise of some very good food, _sans_ ricotta cheese, to entice him out.

David moves to flip up the hood of his coat when Patrick grabs his arm. “Hold up,” he says, and pulls out his phone. He swipes it open to the camera and David realizes what he’s trying to do.

“A selfie, really?”

Patrick looks a little embarrassed but shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t have a single picture from this trip that I’m actually in. Humor me.”

David wants to protest, but he sees the sincerity in Patrick's eyes and he just can’t bring himself to do it.

“Fine,” he says. “But I just want to point out that I had your dick in my ass last night and this is somehow still the gayest thing I’ve done all weekend.”

Patrick shakes his head ruefully as David moves in closer until he can see his face on the screen. He usually doesn’t smile in photos as a rule, but seeing himself squeezed into frame next to Patrick, who smiles broadly with no hint of shame, changes his mind just a little. He slips a hand around Patrick’s waist and allows the corners of his lips to twerk up just before Patrick takes the picture. 

Patrick pulls up the selfie and looks pretty pleased with the result. He shows David, who is surprised by how much he likes it. It’s not a perfect photo. Both their faces are flushed from the cold, and you can hardly make out the museum behind them - if Patrick even cared about seeing it - but it’s nice. Despite the mismatched price points of their outfits, and the contrast of Patrick’s wholesome eagerness against David’s cool demeanor, they actually somehow look like they fit together. 

“Want me to send it to you?” Patrick asks. 

David hesitates, his instinct to make a flippant remark and take a pass nagging at him. Even worse, the voice from earlier that morning decides to make a reappearance.

_What would be the point,_ it asks. _Who would you even show it to? What would you say? Come look at the guy I’m not in a relationship with, don’t we look happy?_

“Sure,” he finally says, doing his best to pretend he didn’t hear the voice in the first place. “Why not?”

  
  


**

  
  


Patrick allows David to take the reins for the rest of the day and, unsurprisingly, this leads them almost exclusively to food.

There’s Momofuku Noodle Bar for the brisket ramen, followed by Milk Bar for their crack pie.

From there he makes them walk almost twenty blocks to Levain for what Patrick ultimately agrees is the best chocolate chip cookie he’s ever had, though not so good that they couldn’t have taken the subway despite David’s insistence that they ‘earn the calories’. 

If Patrick cares about seeing any more traditional landmarks, he doesn’t bring it up. He seems content to spend the day following in David’s wake. 

  
  


**

  
  


“I feel like a drowned rat,” Patrick announces, shedding his jacket and shoes so as not soak David’s entryway anymore than he already has. David takes them from him to toss in the laundry room. 

“You’re much too cute to be a drowned rat,” David notes when he returns. “Maybe a drowned bunny. Or an otter.”

“How would an otter drown? They literally live in water.”

“Oh my God, I’m not a zoologist, just take the compliment.” He pulls open the fridge to stash the collection of leftovers they’ve accumulated throughout the day.

“What I’m going to take is a hot shower, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, I’ve already marked the level my shampoo was at this morning.”

“What a shame, I’ve always wanted to smell like someone lit a leather couch on fire.”

David slams the fridge door closed and spins on his heel, ready to give Patrick hell for that little remark, but Patrick’s already in front of him and he’s pulling David into a kiss before he can say a word. Patrick’s lips move lazily against his own, his tongue tracing gently against David’s bottom lips.

Just when David starts to contemplate whether he’s willing to amend his ‘no sex in the kitchen’ policy to ‘some foreplay allowed in the kitchen’, Patrick pulls away. “Any chance you’d want to join me?”

“Mmm, that is a _very_ tempting offer, but if I don’t get some form of caffeine in me then there’s a very good chance I’ll fall asleep in the shower before we can actually get - ”

“Clean?” Patrick suggests with a smirk.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Suit yourself,” Patrick says with a shrug. 

David wants to say yes. He wants to slip into the shower, to touch Patrick, to have Patrick touch him. But he needs a second to think without him in the room clouding his judgement. He needs an exit strategy. There’s no nicer name for it. The facts, whether he wants to face them or not, are these:

Patrick is leaving for the airport in six hours. He will get on a plane, fly to another country, and that will be the last David ever sees of him. He will slip back into this old life, a life that is in no way compatible with David’s. He will be surrounded by friends and family who love him and care for him and who will will have absolutely nothing in common with a thirty four year old queer gallery owner from New York who owns sweaters that cost more than some peoples’ cars. 

He will come out to them, and they will accept him, because David can’t even begin to imagine anyone rejecting Patrick from their lives, despite the fact that that’s exactly what he’s trying to prepare himself to do. He will meet a nice guy with relatively little baggage who can offer Patrick everything that David can’t - a quiet life in a small town, spent with someone who isn’t such a fucking project. 

Eventually Patrick will forget about David, and David will forget about Patrick. Not entirely, of course. They’ll always have a good story about getting stuck in an elevator on New Year’s Eve and how it got them laid for an entire weekend. Patrick will remember David in a vague sense, with time and distance smoothing out all the rough edges in his mind. David tells himself that he’ll forget about Patrick too, because he has to believe that he will. He has to believe that he will move on with his life, with his job, with someone else. And that by this time next year, Patrick will be a pleasant but distant memory to him.

If there’s a silver lining to this whole thing, it's how kind time has the potential to be to both of them. 

_Oh horse shit_ , says the voice in his mind. 

David presses the buttons on his espresso maker and pretends the voice didn’t say anything.

_He might move on, but you won’t._

_I’ll be fine._

_You’ve literally never been fine._

The machine is flashing a message at him in Italian and he can’t think straight long enough to remember what it means.

_What if this is as good as it gets for you?_

_Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up._

_But you’re definitely not as good as it gets for him._

He slaps the panel of buttons and miraculously it actually starts to dispense his drink.

He hears the shower turn off and he tries to center himself. Patrick deserves a lot of things, but dealing with David having a panic attack over the end of their non-existent relationship isn’t one of them. He just needs to figure out a way to end this - not with a bang, but a whimper.

He hears Patrick pad his way into the kitchen and looks over to find him wearing nothing more than a towel around his waist. His hair is still wet and his skin is flushed pink from the heat of the water. Any mental energy David was devoting to thinking up an exit strategy evaporates in an instant.

“Hi there,” Patrick says with a smirk. He looks over at David’s espresso machine. “How quickly can you drink that?”

“I could always take it like a shot if I didn’t mind burning my tongue off. Why?”

“Because I have something I really want to do with you, and I’m thinking you might need the extra energy.” He leans up and brushes his lips over David’s. 

“Something? How delightfully vague.”

“I can be more specific if you’d like. As in, it specifically involves you fucking me.”

He moves to kiss David again, but David puts a hand out to stop him. “That’s, uh...that’s a big step.”

Patrick’s lips quirk up. “Are you talking about sex, or your dick?”

David feels heat rising in his cheeks. He didn’t want to sound egotistical, but his size was actually one of the things giving him pause. Patrick seemed to enjoy his fingers last night, but this isn’t just taking the training wheels off. It’s throwing the whole damn bike off a cliff. On the other hand, Patrick has proven time and again that he's willing and able to communicate with David during sex. If it gets to be too much, he has to believe that Patrick would say so.

David runs his hand over Patrick’s chest, enjoying the feel of his heart pounding beneath his skin. “Just... just promise me this isn’t a one for one thing you’ve built up in your head. You know - you fucked me in the ass so now I fuck you.”

“David, the only thing in my head right now is how you felt inside of me last night.”

David swallows hard, remembering the feeling of Patrick's body shaking around his fingers. “Oh.”

“I want to feel that again.”

“Okay - yes - we can do that. _I_ can do that for you.”

“Good,” replies Patrick, looping his arms around David’s neck. “I have an overwhelming amount of faith in you. So are we doing this here or…”

He looks around the kitchen like he’s considering its various surfaces and ranking their ability to support both their weights. 

“No way,” David snaps. “Uh-uh, I am not bending you over the kitchen counter.”

“But you are going to bend me over something, right?”

The question catches David off guard. That wasn’t really what he’d had in mind when he agreed to fuck Patrick. Not that he minds the idea at all, though the kitchen counter was still a no-go, but it’s like their first night together all over again. He wants everything to be slow and gentle and perfect, and he knows himself well enough to know that if he gets Patrick on his hands and knees, slow and gentle are going to go straight out the window. Does he really want their last time together to be some hard and fast fuck?

Last time. Fuck, why did he have to think that? He doesn’t want to think about that because it shouldn’t even matter to him. It shouldn’t matter if it’s their first or last or thousandth time. They’re not together. Not dating, not married, not in love. This was _always_ temporary. He wants the sex to be good, of course he wants it to be good, but why should it be for any special reason? This isn’t some grand finale, or a tearful goodbye. 

It’s just a thing. 

Things end. 

Even good ones.

“David?” Patrick asks hesitantly, pulling back. “Are you - is everything okay? Because we don’t have to do that. The bending over thing, that was just a joke.”

“No! No, sorry, everything’s fine. I just got lost thinking about...stuff.”

Patrick takes a step toward him and hooks a finger in each of his front pockets. “Fun stuff?” he asks, somehow managing to make the question sound innocent.

_Oh fuck it_ , David thinks to himself. _If it’s going to be a finale then I’m going to make it a grand fucking finale._

He slips a hand under Patrick’s towel and with one sharp pull it comes undone. Patrick blanches, now standing stark naked in David’s kitchen, but he doesn’t try to cover himself. “ _Very_ fun stuff.”

Patrick leans up to kiss him but David stops him. “I already told you, I’m not bending you over in my kitchen. Go get on the bed.” He doesn’t say it like it’s a suggestion.

Patrick’s mouth drops open slightly at David’s order, but he nods and starts down the hall that leads to the bedroom. David follows closely behind, shedding his shirt and as he goes. They reach the bed and Patrick turns back to face him. He’s chewing on his lip until David reaches out his thumb and tugs it free. 

“You want me to fuck you?” 

Patrick nods.

“And you want me to bend you over?”

Patrick hesitates for a moment, then nods again.

“Get on your knees then.” 

David sees Patrick swallow hard, and he swears he can actually make out his pulse beating in his neck. He has to stop himself from leaning down and sucking that pulse point into his mouth. He worries for a second that he’s been too bold, acted too brazenly. He only wants to give Patrick what he’s asking for, but he doesn’t know which version of Patrick he’s talking to right now - the one from their first night, who stammered out an admission that he didn’t really know what he was doing; or the one from last night, who rolled them over with ease and fucked David so hard he couldn’t think straight.

Patrick takes a shaky breath and turns around. He climbs on the bed, back to David, and drops to his knees. He slowly turns his head back to look at David, and though his face is open and vulnerable, his gaze is steady. David crawls on to the bed behind him, reaching out a hand and running it lightly down Patrick’s back to the very top of his ass and back up again. 

“I wish you could see how good you look right now.”

Patrick says nothing, but David can hear him taking deep and steady breaths. He drops a kiss down on to the right dimple of Patrick’s lower back, then the left. He can do this. He can separate himself from the voice in his head. He can compartmentalize. He can give Patrick exactly what he wants, and then he can let him go. He has to.

He traces his fingers down the length of Patrick’s spine, and enjoys the sight of the goosebumps that erupt wherever he touches. He keeps his hands moving down, palming Patrick’s ass lightly before moving down to his thighs. When he brings them back up, he skims a single finger over Patrick’s hole and watches as his whole body jerks at the touch.

“David,” Patrick says, his voice already hoarse.

“Yes Patrick?”

“You...you gotta...”

“What?” He knows Patrick can’t see his face, but he smiles anyway. “What do I have to do?”

“Touch me.”

“I _am_ touching you.” He runs his fingers over his hips as if to emphasize his point.

“More,” Patrick chokes out, and David was planning on drawing this out some more but the desperate edge to Patrick’s voice breaks him.

He leans down and runs his tongue over Patrick’s hole. Patrick lets out a strangled moan, and to David’s surprise actually pushes himself back against his face. David, not one to ignore such a clear signal, surges forward and buries his tongue in him. His fingers dig into Patrick’s hips, holding him in place as he bucks and rolls against David’s mouth. 

David slips a hand between Patrick’s legs and finds his cock already hard and slick with precum. He swipes a finger over the head and sits up. Patrick whines at the loss of David’s tongue against him but then David is pressing that same finger into Patrick and the whine turns into a moan. 

He meets little resistance as he slides in, having already worked him open with his mouth. He stops after just the first knuckle and holds it there. He runs his other hand in slow circles over Patrick’s ass. It takes a few beats for him to get the reaction he was hoping for - Patrick starts to push back against his finger, slipping it farther inside of him.

When it slides in completely, he asks, “This is what you wanted Patrick?”

He sees Patrick nod his head from behind.

“Sorry,” he says, and slips the finger back just a few centimeters. “Couldn’t quite hear that.”

“Yes,” Patrick breathes out, and David pushes back in, then freezes his hand again. 

“You want me inside you?”

“Yes,” Patrick groans.

“I think you need to show me how much you want that.”

At that, Patrick finally turns his head around to look at David. His eyes are glazed and his cheeks are flushed. “What do you mean?” 

David works his finger back and forth that same incremental distance, and he sees Patrick squeeze his eyes shut at the sensation. “Well, I think I need a little demonstration. How about I keep my hand right here, and you can show me how much you want it?”

David has an ulterior motive with this idea. On the one hand, yes, it’s incredibly hot and he wants nothing more than to watch Patrick get himself off on his fingers. But on the other, David wants to give Patrick some semblance of control in the situation. David has him in about as vulnerable position as he possibly can, and left to his own devices he would probably already be sliding his cock into Patrick with abandon. But no matter how much David would love to do that, and no matter how much Patrick might beg him to, it’s still his first time.

Patrick’s eyes go wide at David’s suggestion. He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, but instead he takes in a deep breath and faces forward again. The next thing he feels is Patrick’s body leaning forward, causing David’s finger to slip out of him almost completely, before he pushes back all the way down to his hand. David hears him exhale when his wrist brushes against Patrick’s ass, and then he’s rocking forward again and back down. Back and forth, he works himself on to David’s finger, which slides into him with ease.

“You want another one?” David asks.

“Yes,” Patrick breathes. 

“Hold on.” David leans over and pulls a small bottle of lube from the nightstand and squeezes a small amount on to his fingers. He braces them against Patrick’s hole and waits. There’s the smallest amount of resistance when Patrick presses against him, but then he’s slipping past the ring of muscle and he hears a deep sigh come from Patrick. He twists his fingers to spread the lube and Patrick jerks against him.

He waits for him to start building up his rhythm again and then he twists his fingers again, and this time he sees one of Patrick’s arms tremble and he freezes.

“ _Fuck David_ ,” Patrick gasps.

“Again?”

“Please.”

“I’ll move when you do.”

Patrick takes a second to get his bearings, and then he starts to move again. David lets him pick up some speed before he crooks his fingers just right, and he knows he’s hit his mark when Patrick’s arm gives out entirely and he goes down to his elbows. David brushes his finger back and forth a few more times as Patrick lets out a stream of noises that don’t come close to resembling actual speech. 

David stills his hand and lays a series of kisses up Patrick’s back to his neck. He allows him a moment to catch his breath.

“Can you take one more?” he asks against the back of Patrick’s ear. 

“Mmhmm,” Patrick moans, his face braced against his forearm. 

David adds more lube to his hand and then he’s giving Patrick a third finger. Patrick’s other arm gives out and now his head is hanging between his shoulders, but still he manages to work himself back on to David. His hips rock back and forth, not too fast, but still taking as much as David can give him. David is lost in the sight of Patrick’s back curved up, his ass opening so sweetly for him. 

He places a hand on Patrick’s hip to still him and slips his fingers out. He expects Patrick to say something about stopping him, but it seems like staying breathing is all Patrick can manage right now.

“Okay Patrick,” David says, reaching into his nightstand for a condom and tearing it open. He’s been trying to ignore his own arousal for the sake of focusing all his attention on Patrick, but he finally notices the pool of precum that’s dripped down his thigh and as he rolls the condom down his length. He wonders if he’s ever been more turned on than he is right now. “You did so good. So now I’m going to give it to you okay? I’m going to give you exactly what you want.”

He squeezes the lube directly over Patrick’s hole, wanting to err on the side of caution. He’d done well with David’s fingers, but his cock is still a big step up for him. David lines himself up with Patrick and presses in slowly. He stares down as Patrick’s hole first holds him back then slowly gives in and allows David’s cock to breach him. 

A low guttural moan falls from Patrick’s lips and David stops, holding himself there, allowing Patrick to adjust. He’s actually grateful for the desensitizing nature of the condom. If he’d gone bareback he probably would have come the second he entered Patrick.

After waiting a beat and hearing no more sound come from Patrick beyond his labored breathing, David pushes forward again. He makes it halfway down his shaft when Patrick slaps his hand out on the bed. 

“David, please - stop - I can’t -”

David immediately freezes, his worst fear being realized - he’d gone too fast and hurt Patrick.

“Okay, shit - okay. Do you want me to pull - ”

“No!” The strength of his objection surprises David, but he holds himself still instead of pulling out. “No, just - need a minute. Please, stay. Just...a minute.”

David barely trusts himself to breathe. He braces his hands on Patrick’s hips and quietly waits for a signal, any signal, that Patrick needs him to pull out all together. The only feeling he can register in his own body is the heavy thud of his heart in his chest, and Patrick clenched tightly around his dick. He watches Patrick’s back rise and fall as he takes in deep breaths through his nose and slowly exhales each one through his mouth. 

Eventually, _miraculously_ , Patrick starts to push back against David of his own accord. He takes it slow, just like he did with his fingers. A little back, a little forward, and then farther back than before. David lets Patrick work himself down on to his cock at his own pace, despite the animal part of his brain wanting him to grab hold and drive into Patrick.

After what feels like an eternity, David feels his ass brush against his hips, and he realizes Patrick’s taken all of him. He looks down at where they’re joined, David’s thick black hair standing out in stark contrast against Patrick’s pale skin, and he wonders how he’s going to go the rest of his life without seeing this again.

_Stop it_ , he tells himself. _Not fucking now._

“David?” Patrick asks softly, and it silences the voice in David’s head immediately. 

“What do you need?”

“Move. Please.”

“Wait, like out of - ”

The question dies in his throat as Patrick rocks himself forward on his cock and back down to the base once more. Oh. He wants David to _move_. 

He slowly pulls out of Patrick until only the head remains inside, and then he allows himself to sink back in to the hilt just as slowly. He works himself in and out of Patrick like that a few more times, until on one of the downward thrusts he feels Patrick push his body back to meet him. 

“More. Please...need you,” Patrick pleads, and David realizes he’s already more accustomed to his size than he thought.

He tests that theory out by thrusting in with some actual force then next time, and the move earns him a gasp from deep within Patrick’s chest. He holds himself there until he hears Patrick’s voice demand, “Again.”

David adjusts his grip on Patrick’s hips and settles into a deep and steady rhythm. Patrick is tight, almost too tight around him, and even with the condom between them he has to distract himself from thinking about just how good he feels plunging in and out of Patrick’s heat. He’s managing alright until Patrick starts to roll his hips back into him and he realizes just how fine a line he’s walking right now.

“Fuck David, you feel - _fuck_ \- you feel good.”

David wants to reply to him, to tell him he feels good too, but it’s more than that and he doesn’t have the words until their bodies meet and he bottoms out and then the words are there, clear as day.

Home. It feels like sliding home. Like Patrick’s body was made for him, and it’s just been waiting for him to find it, to find where he belongs. Patrick fits him and he fits Patrick and this doesn’t just happen every day. If it did, if everyone felt like this all the time, society would grind to a halt. No one would ever get out of bed because why would you when you could feel like _this_ instead?

The thought should bring him happiness but it doesn’t. This isn’t good. It took him thirty-four years to feel something like this and now Patrick’s going to leave and the odds are against him ever feeling like this again. But now he knows what it’s like, and he can’t unknow it, and he wishes more than anything he’d never figured it out in the first place. Then he wouldn’t know exactly what he’s going to be missing. This is the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to him. 

He wants this to last forever, but he knows it has to end. The keening noises Patrick is making are short circuiting his brain, but that’s fine because he doesn’t want to think right now. He just wants to feel Patrick come undone beneath him.

He pitches himself forward so his chest is pressing down on Patrick’s back. He slips a hand around and grabs hold of Patrick’s cock. His hand is still slick with lube and Patrick is leaking freely so it’s the easiest thing in the world when he starts to pump him. 

“ _God_ , David, you feel - fuck - you - “

“I know,” David pants. “I know.”

He’s fucking Patrick with his hand in time to his thrusts and he loses himself in the feeling of Patrick’s body. He shouldn’t, he knows it will cost him dearly, but he can’t help it. He knows Patrick is close as his moans become more desperate and he sees him grab a fistful of sheets with white knuckles. He watches as the muscles in his back tighten all at once. 

“FUCK!” Patrick cries, and then he’s spilling into David’s hand and David wants to help him ride it out but then his own dam breaks. He’s coming, hard, calling out Patrick’s name even though he tries not but it feels like some invisible force is pulling it from his throat. 

And then it’s done. Not just the sex, but them. David needs this to be over. He should have said no last night, at the Jade Village. When Patrick asked to spend one more day with him, he should have made up an excuse not to, and walked away for both their sakes. It would have hurt, sure, but not as much as this.

Patrick has collapsed forward into a pillow and is still panting from his orgasm. David pulls out of Patrick as gently as he can and makes for the bathroom to dispose of the condom. He avoids his own reflection in the mirror because he doesn’t trust that he won’t see judgement in his own eyes for what he’s about to do. He takes a deep breath, steeling himself, and grabs a dampened washcloth before turning off the lights.

When he returns to the bedroom he finds Patrick on his back, eyes staring up at the ceiling with the glazed expression of the thoroughly well-fucked. He looks over at David and smiles.

“I think I get what you meant about not being able to walk if I’d gone home with that guy from the bar.”

David winces. “That bad?”

“No,” Patrick says. “Good. Everything is really good.”

David takes the washcloth and gently swipes it over Patrick’s ass. “You don’t have to do that,” Patrick mumbles. 

“As someone who knows what it’s like to walk around with dried lube between their legs, I promise you I do.”

He tosses the cloth in his hamper and turns to see Patrick pulling himself up to sit against the headboard, looking slightly more aware of his surroundings.

“That was great,” he says, and David can barely stand to look him in the eye as he nods in agreement. 

Instead of joining him in bed, David leans back against his dresser and casually crosses his arms. “So you’ve got a pretty early flight tomorrow?”

Patrick rubs a tired hand down his face. “6 AM. Free flights come with a catch.”

“And your stuff is still at the hotel?”

“Yeah, I’ll have to leave here a little early to grab my bags. Probably should’ve just gotten them this morning but it slipped my mind.”

“Mmhmm,” David hums. He feels a tightening sensation creep up from his chest and into his throat. He has to fight to keep his voice sounding casual. “What if you just headed back there now? Get a couple hours sleep and leave straight from the hotel?”

Patrick’s eyes narrow in confusion. “Well, I thought I would sleep here instead. I mean, if I have to go back there either way then it doesn’t really make a difference, does it?”

“I was just thinking it would be easier for you, if you were taking the train to the airport from Penn.” He’s trying to keep his voice light, like he really is just trying to be helpful. “The subway ride is only a couple minutes from your hotel and it’s a lot more out of the way from here so…”

“Easier,” Patrick repeats the word flatly. 

“Uh-huh, easier. Like, commute-wise, or whatever.”

Patrick stares at him intently, and David forces his face to remain completely impassive, despite the fact that it feels as though Patrick can see straight through his head and into his thoughts.

“David, did I do something wrong here? Was it the sex or - ”

“No!” David shakes his head emphatically. “The sex was great, you were great, everything was - ”

“Great,” Patrick finishes for him. He doesn’t sound terribly convinced.

“Right.” This isn’t working. Patrick’s still in his bed and he never wants him to get out of it but he needs him to and _this isn’t working._ “Honestly I’ve just got an early day tomorrow. You know, at the...the gallery. And I, uh, know you’ve got a long day too, and so we both need all the sleep we can get.”

“David, if you want me to leave, you can just say so.” Patrick’s lips are pinched into a thin line, his jaw set. David’s never seen him like this, cool and guarded, but what did he expect? 

_Thanks for the sex, let me get out of your hair, I’d hate for you to have to deal with a genuine human emotion._

“That’s not what I’m saying,” David objects. “Really, I’m just thinking about what’s best for the both of us. This way just seems - ”

“Easier. Yeah, you mentioned that already.” Patrick pushes away the covers and grabs his clothes off the chair where he’d left them after his shower. 

David wants to tell him to stop, to just get back into bed and wake him up in the middle of the night, he doesn’t mind.

_Too late_ , the ugly little voice says. _You’re getting what you wanted_.

_I never get what I want._

To that the voice has no reply.

Patrick has his jeans and shirt on David knows the voice is right - too late to go back now.

“I could call you an Uber if you want?”

Patrick pulls on his socks and looks around for his shoes before apparently remembering he left them by the front door. “No thanks,” he says, his voice perfectly neutral. “I’ve still got some money left on my MetroCard, may as well use it.” 

David grabs Patrick’s jacket from where he left it hanging in the laundry room and follows him to the front door. He watches as he ties the laces of his boot and for a second he wishes desperately that he could rewind the clock and stop this whole thing from happening.

But where should he have stopped it?

Five minutes ago, when he suggested Patrick leave in the first place?

This morning, when he started telling him things about his family that he’d never even admitted to Alexis?

Last night, when he agreed to spend the rest of the weekend with Patrick instead of just calling the whole thing off?

Or maybe he would go back to the very beginning, and never get on that goddamn elevator in the first place.

_Too late now_ , the voice reminds him. _No take-backs_.

Patrick stands and pats his pockets, checking that he has his phone and wallet with him. David wracks his brain for something else he might have left in the apartment, anything to get him to stay a minute longer, but Patrick hadn’t brought much with him, not even a souvenir. 

“Alright,” Patrick says, glancing down at his watch. “I should get going then.”

“Right...okay. So if you’re ever - ”

“David, wait. I just…,” Patrick stares down at his does, giving his words some careful thought. “Uh, I just wanted to say thank you.”

“For what?”

Patrick spreads his hands as though he doesn’t know where to start. “Everything, I guess?”

“So not just the sex then?” David asks, only half joking.

“Not just the sex,” Patrick replies. He offers David a small smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Listen, I know you mentioned your family has a place in Toronto. If you’re ever up there…”

He trails off, the unspoken implication hanging in there air between them. “For sure,” David says. “I mean, I don’t go up there too often. My family and I are...whatever we are. But definitely. I, uh - I have your number.”

David doesn’t believe the words even as he’s saying them, and he doubts Patrick does either.

Patrick just nods and pulls his hat and gloves on. Then he’s moving, closing the distance between the two of them, and David thinks he’s going to kiss him. He does, but Patrick turns his head at the last minute so he’s only kissing David’s cheek, a dry and fleeting touch. 

He pulls back and he still has that weak smile on his face and David wishes he could do something, anything, to make it go away because he hates the idea that that’s the last expression he’ll see on Patrick’s face. “Goodbye David.”

David wants to say it back but the words won’t make it past his throat, and Patrick’s already at the door. He pauses, and David swears that if he turns around right then and begs David to stay, he’ll let him. He’ll say yes to anything he asks. But then he’s pulling the door open and just like that, he’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...ummm...I'm sorry?


	16. Time keeps on slipping

The door of David's apartment closes behind him like a jail cell, except Patrick is being locked out, not in.

He’s waiting to feel something - anger, hurt, betrayal, anything. But a numbness had taken hold of him the moment his lips had brushed David’s cheek and it enveloped him still. If he felt like delving into the psychology of it, he would probably say it was a defence mechanism. Without it, Patrick might have done something truly embarrassing, like begging to stay, or asking David for his opinion on long distance relationships. 

It might even be the same defence mechanism that had sent him Schitt’s Creek in the first place. It had, after all, told him to do essentially the same thing as he’d done before - pack his shit and get the hell out of town.

He calls the elevator to David’s floor and replays what just happened in his head, searching for the moment where it all went sideways. Was it the sex? It had definitely been intense, both physically and mentally for Patrick, but it wasn’t like he’d declared his undying love for David as he came. Maybe it had happened earlier in the day and he just hadn’t noticed. Had the picture in front of the museum been a step too far? It was the sort of thing you did in relationships, and he’d expected David to make fun of him for it, but instead he'd agreed to take it. Patrick could remember the feeling of David’s arm wrapping lightly around his waist as he held the phone aloft.

It doesn’t make sense. They’d gone almost the entire day without acknowledging the ticking clock hanging over them. Patrick had figured that if David wanted to talk about it, he would bring it up. Patrick supposed he had brought it up in the end; he just hadn’t expected it to come as a thinly veiled request for Patrick leave five minutes after they’d slept together.

He steps out into an almost empty lobby save for Stefan, who’s flipping through a worn looking paperback at the small security desk next to the entrance. Patrick can see the rain coming down in sheets through the glass doors, and wonders if he should have just swallowed his pride and let David call him that Uber. 

“You will need a cab?” Stefan asks. Patrick hadn’t even seen him look up from his book.

Something about the idea of David’s doorman calling him a car is worse than allowing David to do it in the first place. “No thanks,” he replies. “I’ll be fine.”

He tucks his phone into the inside pocket of his jacket and zips it up to the neck.

“You go now?” Stefan stares at him with the same impassive expression he always seems to wear, though for the first time Patrick doesn’t feel like he’s being examined as a potential threat. 

“Yeah,” he says, pushing his body into the door. “I go now.”

**

The two hour flight time between Toronto and New York had felt like nothing the first time around. Two drinks and one conservatively edited version of Straight Outta Compton later and it was over. The flight home, however, takes a small eternity.

He thanks God for the small favor of being the only person in his row, even if that row happens to be the last one on the place, doesn’t recline, and shares a wall with the bathroom. The numbness he experienced earlier is wearing off. It seems to be correlated with his ability to keep himself busy. He hadn’t even tried to sleep when he got back to the hotel, choosing to forgo the bed in favor of a long shower that had failed to drive the chill from his bones.

He’d taken a blow dryer to the clothes he’d worn from David’s apartment to avoid them dampening the rest of his suitcase, and then proceeded to unpack and repack that same suitcase three times in a row. He finally gave up around 2 AM, having killed all the time he possibly could in that dingy little room, and checked out.

“Sorry, you were the guest who got stuck in the elevator on New Year’s Eve, right?” the night clerk asked him as he was signing the bill.

Patrick didn’t recognize him, but he assumed the story had to have spread to most of the staff by that point. “Yeah,” he said, handing back the pen he’d borrowed. “That was me.”

“Well on behalf of the staff at The Carver, we wanted to offer our sincere apologies and provide you with this gift certificate for a free continental breakfast.”

Patrick stared down at the little slip of paper the man had pushed across the counter. “Says here you start serving breakfast at 5 AM.”

“Every morning,” the clerk confirmed.

“But it’s 2 AM.”

The clerk didn’t seem to register the problem with that, so he tried again.

“I _just_ checked out.”

Still the same blank look, and Patrick didn’t have the energy to explain it any further. “You know what, I’ll probably just save it for my next visit.” He winces at his own choice of words. 

_What next visit?_

“I have one here for the other guy, the one who got stuck with you. Any chance you know where he is? We’ve been keeping an eye out for him but we weren’t sure if he was even a guest.”

“No,” Patrick says, to a disinterested shrug from the clerk. “I don’t really know him.”

The rain had finally let up enough to allow him to walk the ten blocks to Penn Station. Walking was good. He could focus all his attention on putting one foot in front of the other. Then there was the subway, a transfer at Jamaica Station to the Airtram, the check-in counter, and forty-five minutes spent shuffling through security with every other poor soul who was going out on the first flights of the day. But that was fine, that was all perfectly fine, because he was moving. As long as he kept moving, his brain kept reality at bay.

But now he’s strapped into his seat, and moving is no longer an option. Reality seeps back in, and holding it back is like trying to fight the tides. The whole weekend is playing itself out in his memories.

David’s head slamming into his nose.

_You couldn’t afford me._

David’s mouth wrapped around his cock.

His mouth wrapped around David’s.

Bagels and pancakes and dumplings and cookies.

_I like how you taste._

Edward Norton and French prostitutes.

Disco vikings.

Lessons.

_I wish you could see how good you look right now._

He wants it to stop there but it doesn’t. David’s standing across the room from him, arms crossed, and when he speaks it’s in a voice Patrick hasn’t heard from him before. It’s not cold or mean or bitter. It would almost be better if it was. It’s just...detached. Like the past three days have meant nothing. 

_Easier._

That’s the excuse. It would be so much easier if he just went back to his hotel. Patrick doesn’t believe it, and he doesn’t think David does either. But he does it anyway. It’s the least embarrassing option for the both of them. 

The film comes to a close in Patrick’s mind and to his horror he discovers it loops right back to the beginning all over again, back to the hotel, the elevator. He really should’ve just taken the damn stairs.

**

It’s barely nine in the morning by the time he’s pulling out of long term parking, and Patrick’s running on fumes. He’s coming up on twenty four hours without sleep and he’s got at least another hour on the road ahead of him. He debates pulling off at the first rest station he passes for a nap, but somehow he knows in his gut that sleep won’t come to him any easier now than it did on the plane. 

Patrick cranks the stereo in hopes of drowning out his thoughts, but his mind just gets louder in turn, and he shuts it off in defeat after half a Neil Young song.

The highlight reel mercifully stops playing in his head around the time he hits Washago. He suspects the exhaustion has something to do with it. Maybe mentally self-flagellating takes energy he simply doesn’t have left. He passes a sign just outside the county line:

**Bracebridge - 40 km**

**Schitt’s Creek - 65 km**

**Elmdale - 100 km**

A strange feeling settles in his stomach when he sees it. He’s only been gone for four days, but it feels like a lifetime. Long enough for him to have come back a different person than he was when he left. That’s what that feeling is - change. Not on the outside. If this weekend has taught him anything, it’s that the outside is indifferent to what’s happening inside of him. Skin doesn’t bruise just because the heart breaks. The body just carries on, because what else can it do?

Inside is a different story. It feels like something down in the core of him had slipped free this weekend. It had spread out and stretched limbs it didn’t know it had. It had gotten too comfortable too fast, and now there was no going back. He can’t just fold it in on itself and put it back where it came from. Some things, he realizes, can only grow outward. 

He passes the sign of Roland’s great grandfather bending over his sister just after ten, and his focus finally shifts away from everything that’s happened to him in the past three days towards a singular desire to just make it to his bed. He parks his car on the street outside Ray’s and barely remembers to grab his bag out of the trunk. His hopes that Ray is out for the morning are dashed as soon as he opens the front door. 

He’s greeted by a dozen eight year olds in the living room, all members of the same pee-wee hockey team judging by their matching jerseys. Ray is in the middle of swapping out a backdrop in the makeshift photo studio he’d recently converted the sitting room into, seemingly oblivious to the cacophony of sound the little boys are producing while they wait to have their pictures taken.

“Ray,” Patrick calls out, struggling to make himself heard above the din. “Ray!”

Ray finally turns around, a friendly smile splitting across his face when he sees who's yelling at him. 

“Patrick!” he calls, almost dropping the sheet. “I forgot you were coming home today. Here, help me with this.”

Patrick holds on to the corner while Ray unclips it. “Ray, what are all these kids doing here?”

“Team photos of course! The whole league commissioned me for this season’s pictures. I’ve got the Elmdale team coming at noon.”

He takes the sheet from Patrick’s hand and begins to neatly roll it back up. 

“And why aren’t you taking their pictures at the rink?” 

Ray still has that infuriatingly chipper smile on his face, the one he wears when he’s showing houses, or trying to pitch the town council on one of his new business ventures. “It’s closed for maintenance this week. I couldn’t make them take pictures on a rink with no ice, how depressing would that be?” He laughs as though it’s the most ludicrous thing he’s ever heard.

“Umm, about on par with taking them in your living room against - ” Patrick has to take a step back to figure out what exactly Ray has just hung up, “ - the inside of a volcano?”

“Well it was either this or the Eiffel Tower, and what little boy doesn’t love volcanoes?”

Patrick briefly wonders if maybe this is all a hallucination brought on by his sleep deprived brain. Then one of the kids trips and sends a hockey stick flying into the back of his head and he realizes that no, this is actually his life.

**

Stevie doesn’t even look up from her crossword when he opens the door to the front office. She doesn’t actually register that it’s him until he’s leaning over the desk with both arms, staring at her pointedly. 

“Oh my God!” she yells, jumping from her seat. “You’re back! How was your flight? Did you bring me anything? How are - ” She slams to a halt in the middle of her sentence, and that’s how Patrick knows she’s finally gotten a good look at his face. “Are...are you okay?”

“I need a bed.”

“Umm, not that I’m really in a position to be turning down the business, but don’t you have a bed at Ray’s? Like, that you already pay for?”

He considers trying to explain the source of his exhaustion, but the idea of even running through even a cliff notes version of the past twenty four hours physically pains him.

“Stevie, please - a bed. Any bed.”

She puts up her arms in surrender and grabs a key off the row of hooks behind her. “Room Six, all yours.”

He tries to thank her but the best he can manage is a weak thumbs up. He opens the doors to Room Six and even through the haze of oncoming sleep, he registers just how aggressively turquoise the wall behind the bed is and how the thick smell of mothballs fills his nostrils. He has enough forethought to toe off his boots before getting into bed, if only to spare himself from dampening the sheets with melting snow. He yanks the curtains closed and collapses on top of the bedspread. He’s asleep the second his head hits the pillow.

**

He knows he’s not alone before he even opens his eyes. But unlike the past few nights, it’s not a large warm body in the bed next to him that he senses. Someone is standing over him.

A finger pokes him lightly in the center of his forehead. “You alive?”

He tries to answer but it feels like his tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth.

“Unh.” It’s not an actual word, but it’s the best he can do.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Scooch over.” He feels her pull back the covers - _when did I get under the covers_ \- and nudge his shoulder.

Patrick slides over to make room for her in the bed and finally forces one eye open. The only light in the room is coming from the table lamp in the corner, and it bathes the room in a warm glow and long shadows.

“How long was I out for?” he asks through a yawn. 

“About twelve hours, give or take.”

“ _Twelve?_ You’re telling me it’s - ”

“Almost midnight.” She tosses him his phone and he clicks on the screen - no calls or texts all day, not that he expects there to be any. “Don’t worry, I checked in on you a couple times to make sure you were still breathing. Brought you some water too.”

“Shit.” He reaches out for the bottle on the nightstand. “I’m sorry."

“It’s alright. Seemed like you needed it.”

He drains the whole thing in one go, and feels the chill of it slip down into this chest and unhook the last tendrils of sleep from his body.

“Yeah,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I, umm...I didn’t get much sleep last night. Early flight and all that.”

“And all that?”

“What?”

“Nothing!” she says a little too brightly. “That’s just a really interesting euphemism for sex. I like it - leaves a lot up to the imagination.”

Patrick can feel the color rising in his cheeks and he stares resolutely down at the bedspread. 

The silence seems to throw Stevie off her rhythm. “Ummm...you want to talk about it? ‘Cause I’ve been waiting three days for this story, but I’m kind of getting the feeling it wasn’t just a weekend long bang fest.”

Patrick laughs in spite of himself. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed Stevie after only a few days.

“No,” he admits. “Definitely not ‘just’.” He almost feels bad that he doesn’t have that kind of story to tell her. After all this time, after being there for him in ways they never talk about, she deserves a good story.

“Come on.” She jabs him in the shoulder. “Out with it.”

“You sure you want to hear this?”

She props herself up against the headboard, legs crossed, hands folded in her lap - the picture of attentiveness. “I let you sleep for twelve hours even though there was nothing on TV. You owe me.”

Patrick sighs and moves himself next to her. “Fair enough. But before I get into it, there is one thing I feel you’ve earned the right to know.”

“Oh?”

“Eggplant. Definitely eggplant.”

**

“Well...shit,” Stevie declares. 

Patrick told her everything. From the moment the elevator doors opened to the moment David’s apartment door closed. He may have glossed over some of the more intimate details about the sex, but he’d left her with the biggest takeaways - sensitive gag reflexes are a curse, everyone should invest in bigger showers, and if he knew what a revelation stubble could be then he probably would have started making out with guys a long time ago.

“Yup, that about sums it up.”

“I did not see that coming.”

He lets out a dry laugh. “Yeah well, imagine how I feel.”

“No, I mean...I just thought you’d holed up in some hot guy’s apartment for the weekend. But instead you basically had a three day long relationship. Oh, I looked him up by the way, and _damn_. Feels kinda weird to bring it up now, considering what you just told me. But still, _good for you_.” 

Patrick buries his head in his hands and groans.

“Sorry,” Stevie says, and awkwardly pats his shoulder. “Probably not what you need to hear right now.”

He drops his hands and leans back against the headboard.

“What do you mean ‘three day long relationship’? I think it’s abundantly clear that David just thought of it as a hook up.”

Stevie looks at him with something far too close to pity for his liking. “Put it this way - you know Jake?”

“The town bicycle?”

She gives him a flat stare. “He prefers Jake, but yeah, him.”

“What about him?”

“I’ve been sleeping with him on and off for, I don’t know, seven months now? And I know next to _nothing_ about him.”

He waits for her to laugh - she has to be exaggerating. “What, you guys don’t talk?”

“Oh no, we talk. We talk about whose turn it is to buy condoms and when one of our legs is cramping up from being in a certain position for too long.”

Patrick snorts at the idea of Stevie doing anything remotely athletic enough to cause a cramp, even during sex. “That sounds fulfilling.”

“Trust me, I’m plenty filled.” Patrick grimaces; she ignores it. “But you know what we don’t talk about? Anything remotely personal. Anything real. I couldn’t tell you what his hopes and dreams are, or what his parents do for a living. For all I know, he doesn’t even have parents. Someone might have just brought a marble statue to life and sent him out into the world to fuck anything that moves.”

He’s seen Jake around town and he thinks the marble statue theory might not be as ridiculous as it sounds. “It’s a good thing you use condoms.”

The crack earns him a sharp punch in the arm. He’s surprised by how much it smarts - Stevie packs a lot of power into some very small fists.

“All I’m saying is that you had a more intimate relationship with David in the course of three days than I’ve had with Jake in seven months.” She pauses for a second and screws her face up. “Actually, now that I think about it, more intimate than any relationship I’ve _ever_ had, with anyone.”

“I don’t know which one of us that says more about.”

Stevie’s eyes narrow as she considers her own observation. “Neither do I.”

They sit in the companionable silence of the romantically cursed for a minute before Stevie points to his phone. “No word from him?”

Patrick shakes his head. “I’m not holding my breath.”

“Sorry,” she offers weakly.

“You know what I don’t get?” he asks. Stevie says nothing, just waits. “I did everything right, and it still went to shit.”

“Sorry, ‘did everything right’?”

“Yeah.” 

“I have no idea what that means.”

Patrick almost regrets having said anything in the first place, but at the same time he wants validation for something that he’s been turning over his mind ever since he walked out of David’s building.

“I mean that I did everything I possibly could to make our last day together completely normal. I didn’t bring up the fact that I was leaving once. I didn’t tell him how I felt about him, I didn’t beg him to let me stay, I didn’t even bring up the idea of keeping in touch.”

Stevie looks at him strangely. “I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I,” Patrick admits. “I went out of my way to make sure that I didn’t throw any emotional shit his way. We went to a museum and we ate cookies and we had sex. It was a _really_ good day. Until it just...wasn’t.”

Stevie’s got that pitying look in her eye again and it makes Patrick’s skin crawl. “No, I get all that,” she says, “I mean I don’t get what makes any of that ‘right’.”

She doesn’t get it. If she knew David, if she just talked to him for five minutes, she would. 

“David isn’t really the romantic type. You know, heartfelt confessions and all that.”

“Ummm, yes he is,” she says with a wry smile.

“You’ve never even met him.”

“You’ve been talking about him non-stop for an hour, I don’t have to meet him. To recap - ” she holds out a hand and starts ticking off fingers, “ - he brought you to a gay bar just so he could show off you, he made you try the best food in the city, and then he took you to one of the most famous museums in the world because he wanted to share his favorite artist with you - and you’re saying he’s not the ‘romantic’ type? Do we have different definitions of that word? Did you not grow up watching the same Tom Hanks movies as I did?”

“That’s not - it wasn’t - I get why you would think that, but no, it wasn’t like that.” She’s wrong. She _has_ to be wrong. Because if she isn’t...well. “If it was like that, then why did he end things the way he did? Why spend all weekend acting like that, and then at the eleventh hour show me the door like I was just some rando that he picked up for the night?”

Stevie reaches down over the side of the bed and comes up holding a bottle of whiskey. “I had a feeling you might need this more than the water at some point.” She unscrews it and swigs it straight from the bottle. Patrick takes it from her silently, debates looking for a glass, then gives in and takes a pull.

“There we go,” she says, capping the bottle and leaving it on the nightstand. “A spoonful of sugar.”

Patrick looks at her out of the side of his eye. “So what’s my medicine?”

Stevie takes a deep breath, like she’s still debating whether to go through with what she has to say. “You were right before - about me not really knowing this guy. Not the way that you do anyway. But I do recognize the signs of an emotionally stunted human being when I see them.”

Wherever Patrick thought Stevie was going to say, that certainly wasn’t it. Not after declaring him to be such a romantic. “And how could you possibly know that?”

“Because I am one.”

“Oh come on, you are not.” He hates it when she talks about herself like this. It sounds tongue in cheek, but he’s always suspected she has an undeservedly low opinion of herself. 

“Yeah dude, I am,” she says, not sounding particularly bothered about it. “Did it sound like I was complaining when I said I knew nothing about Jake after seven months of jumping his bones?”

Patrick shrugs. “I guess not.”

“Correct, because that’s exactly the way I like it.”

It doesn’t make sense to him. Throughout his entire relationship with Rachel, even when he was struggling with the sex and attraction stuff, he still loved knowing that there was someone out there who knew him and loved him - as much as she could given the circumstances. She knew the big things about him - his passion for music, how much he wished he’d had siblings growing up, his irrational fear of his parents dying young. She knew the little things too, things that don’t seem important until there’s no one around who cares about them other than yourself - how he takes his eggs (soft scrambled, over toast), or the fact that he can only fall asleep on his side (sleeping on his back triggers his sleep apnea). Even when he was filled with nothing but doubts about the romantic aspect of their relationship, it didn’t change the fact that for over a decade she’d been one of his best friends. 

The idea that someone could invest so much time with a person and get nothing more from it than some orgasms just didn’t compute for him, even after a weekend of some fairly spectacular orgasms.

“Why?” he asks. 

Stevie shrugs as though the answer really doesn’t matter as much as he thinks it does. “Because I can barely take care of myself, let alone someone else? Because I can deal with the idea of someone not wanting to fuck me better than someone turning me down because they don’t like me a person? My parent’s shitty divorce? Take your pick.”

“And you think David is like you?”

She holds her hand out flat and wiggles it back and forth: maybe-yes-maybe-no. “I mean...not exactly. His brand of bullshit is probably entirely different than mine, but it still smells like shit.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’ve got a way with words?” he asks, reaching over her for the bottle of whiskey again.

“I try,” she says, and steals it back from him. 

She places it back on the nightstand without taking a drink and slides down until her head meets a pillow. Patrick wants to ask her what the hell she’s doing but then he remembers that it’s almost one in the morning and she’s doing what any normal person who didn’t just sleep the day away would be doing - going to sleep.

He’s going to let her, but something is still nagging at him.

“So you’re saying he kicked me out not because he didn’t care about me, but because he wasn’t emotionally capable of just admitting that he was sad I was leaving?”

“I’m saying it sounds like the dude shut down.”

A memory floats into Patrick’s mind, of David and him at the museum. He jokingly told David that he didn’t want to admit where he lived, and right away it was like someone had flipped a switch. David’s eyes slid away and he folded his arms over his chest, making some comment about not caring if Patrick didn’t want him knowing where he lived. He hadn’t given it much thought that the time - they’d fallen back into their normal patter as soon as Patrick admitted the name. But then he thinks of Stevie’s remark about not being able to deal with someone rejecting her as a person, and suddenly the moment doesn’t seem so insignificant anymore.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he breathes out quietly.

Stevie lifts her head off the pillow to look at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he replies, not really wanting to explain it to her. “You might just have a point.”

“Oh,” she says and drops back down to the pillow, her eyes already closed. “That happens sometimes.”

A minute later she’s snoring.

**

Patrick didn’t expect to fall asleep again that night, so he doesn’t immediately understand why he blinked and suddenly there was daylight coming through the window.

He rolls over and finds Stevie awake and tapping on her phone.

“Please tell me I didn’t sleep for another twelve hours,” Patrick mumbles. Something smells funky, and he can’t tell if it’s breath or his body, but it does remind him that he hasn’t showered since before he got on the plane. 

“Closer to six.”

“And you’re up this early because…”

She wiggles her phone at him. “Because Jake texted me to say he’s got a pot of coffee on.”

Patrick thinks his brain isn’t quite firing on all cylinders yet; he assumes that coffee is code for something, but he can’t tell what.

“I can’t believe I’m asking this but is...is the coffee his dick?”

Stevie shoots him an annoyed glance. “It’s not a euphemism; he literally has a fresh pot of coffee at his place.”

“And he felt the need to let you know that at seven in the morning on a...what day is it again?”

“Tuesday,” she says, and tosses back the covers. “He knows I’m not a morning person. If he wants a booty call before noon, he’s got to supply the caffeine.”

She digs her boots out from under the bed and starts to pull them on.

“So you don’t know anything about Jake, but it sounds like he knows at least one thing about you,” Patrick teases, a sign that his brain has fully rebooted.

“He knows one thing that gets him laid. Not exactly the stuff Nora Ephron movies are made of.”

She stands up and tucks her phone in her back pocket. “You going to be okay here?”

“Yeah, I’ll be gone soon. I’ll leave you money for the room at the front desk.”

Stevie looks at him like he’s speaking in tongues. “I wasn't talking about the room - it’s not like you stole it out from under a paying customer. I meant, like...are _you_ okay? In a general, you kinda just got dumped without actually being in a relationship sort of way?”

He’d made it a full three minutes into the day without thinking about David, but she had to remind him and now there he is, front and center in Patrick’s mind. He groans and allows himself to fall back into his pillow.

“Alrighty then,” he hears her say. “Sorry I asked.”

He feels the mattress dip and he looks over to see her sitting on the edge closest to him. 

“How long am I allowed to feel shitty about this whole thing before it officially becomes pathetic?” He’s hoping she answers in terms of weeks, maybe even months. The idea of bucking up and slapping on a smile sounds like hell right now.

She pauses to consider his questions. “Well, the pseudo-relationship lasted for three days, so in my experience, that’s about as long you’re allowed to wallow for. Technically it’s two days now, since you slept through most of the first one.”

“And what does wallowing usually entail?”

“Ummm...do you feel like crying?” Her tone is oddly hopeful given the question.

Patrick thinks about it for a moment, really reaches for it in his mind. “No,” he concludes. “Not really.”

Her shoulders slumps. “Well...damn. That sucks.”

“Why?”

“Because my only other suggestion was going to be to get really drunk about it. Crying seemed like the healthier option.”

Patrick considers the bottle of whiskey, but doesn’t reach for it, and not just because of the early hour. “I don’t know if I want to do that either.”

Stevie throws her hands up in defeat. “Well then I’m all out of ideas. Only other thing I can think of is watching something sad to make yourself cry. You ever seen Field of Dreams?”

“I am not watching Field of Dreams just to make myself cry,” he replies flatly.

“What about those videos of dogs greeting soldiers at the airport?”

“ _Stevie_.”

“Alright, alright. Just trying to help.”

“Well you can stop now.” A wounded look flashes briefly across her face and he realizes how that sounded. “You’re already helping.” 

She snorts at the attempted affirmation.

He leans over and nudges her with his elbow. “Hey, I’m serious. I’m _barely_ spiraling anymore. I’m more like...taking my anxiety out for a leisurely stroll.”

“You’ve just described how I get through most of my days.”

“See? That’s a step. I don’t know in what direction, but it’s definitely a step.”

Stevie rests a hand on his knee, and when she speaks it almost sounds like an apology. “Imagine what you could do if you were friends with a fully functioning adult.”

**

He doesn’t leave right away. There’s an odd shelter-like quality to the motel room. Maybe it’s the anachronistic decor, untouched by any modern updates, that makes him feel like he’s tucked away in his own little corner of the universe, hidden from time and all the troubles that come with it. Or maybe it’s the fact that no one in the world, save Stevie, knows he’s there, and as soon as he steps out the door he will be swept back up in the current of his life, which will carry him away from the motel, and away from David. 

It’s tempting, to say the least. To keep the pause button pressed on his own life. But it’s a feint, a lie he’s telling himself because he’s had enough truth in the past four days to last him a lifetime. The motel doesn’t exist outside of time and space, and nor does he. Time, as the old song goes, keeps on slipping into the future. 

He’s back at Ray’s just just before noon, and finds the house mercifully free of eight years olds in helmets and shoulder pads. Ray greets him with his usual enthusiasm, before promptly handing him a pile of messages that he’s missed in only a few days of being away. It’s busy work - building permits from Ronnie, rezoning applications for a block of houses being converted into store fronts, plus the corresponding incorporation paperwork. Just busy work, but that’s fine. Busy is what he needs right now. 

Ray’s already turned in for the night by the time Patrick finally shuts down his computer. The house is quiet and, for a while, so is Patrick’s mind. But he knows as soon as he slips under the covers of his bed that sleep is a long way off. Eighteen hours of it at the motel had felt pretty good at the time, but had also royally screwed his sleep cycle.

It doesn’t take long for the first image of David to float across his mind. It’s not sexual, thank God. Patrick is barely coming to terms with being lonely, he doesn’t need to add horny into the mix, though he has no doubt it will rear its ugly head soon enough.

He’s sitting at the bar, the light from the disco ball flickering across his face. He’s wearing that self satisfied smirk that seems to be permanently etched on his face, and Patrick’s hand is resting on his thigh. It feels real - _so real_ \- that Patrick thinks he can almost feel the warmth of his leg beneath his palm. The image of David laughs, though Patrick can’t recall what the joke was.

_Fuck_. If this is wallowing, he wants no part of it.

He remembers Stevie’s suggestion - not the drinking one, he doesn’t actually trust himself to get hammered right now - but the one about trying to force a good cry. He’d scoffed at the idea when she’d first brought it up. It wasn’t any macho bullshit about him not being crier. He’d been a groomsman in three different weddings and had learned after the first one to keep a tissue stashed up his sleeve just to make it through the ceremony. He’s just never gone out of his way to make himself cry before. 

He considers texting Stevie to ask how exactly he’s supposed to go about this, but asking a friend how to make himself cry feels dangerously close to rock bottom to him.

Two hours later, Kevin Costner is asking his dad if he wants to have a catch and Patrick’s eyes are as dry as a bone. It’s strange - he’s absolutely cried at this movie before. Hell, he and his dad have cried at this movie together. But it’s like some part of his mind is too aware of what it is he’s trying to do, and is putting the kibosh on the whole thing. It’s like trying to trick yourself into falling - no matter how hard you try, your body is always going to want to brace for impact.

He even gives the whole ‘dogs greeting returning soldiers’ thing a try, but then one of the soldiers kind of looks like David with a buzzcut and he slams his laptop shut in frustration.

In the end he takes a shot of Nyquil and pulls up an episode of This American Life that he’s already heard before. He doesn’t know if this could really be considered a successful attempt at wallowing, but he is fairly miserable, so it must be in the ballpark. He’s asleep before the end of act one.

**

It’s Wednesday night. His mouse hovers over the play button for Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. He can’t do it. It’s not like it would work even if he could. He feels crazy for even considering it. Isn’t that what crazy is? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

He’d woken up early that morning to go for a run and hadn’t stopped moving since. By noon he was completely caught up on everything he’d missed while he was away, and he’d crossed off another dozen or so items from a to-do list of things that didn’t technically need to be done until March. He’d even stooped to asking Ray if he needed any help photographing his new listings. It was hardly a two-person job, but Ray being Ray had just smiled and welcomed the company. He’d even cooked dinner for the two of them later that evening, but now Ray was in bed, and all that was left to occupy Patrick was a category on Netflix labeled ‘Tear Jerkers’ and _he just can’t_.

Maybe Stevie was right. Not about the movies, or the drinking. Maybe what Patrick really needs is an adult.

A fully functioning one.

Someone with their shit together - personally, emotionally, mentally. That’s the kind of person he should be talking to. That’s the kind of person who could tell him how to move on with his life, where he should go from here.

Only problem is, he doesn’t know many people who fit that description.

In fact, he can really only think of one.

** 

It’s late and she’ll probably be asleep, but maybe that’s okay. Maybe it’s enough to just ask her to call him back. If nothing else it buys him time.

She picks up on the third ring.

“Patty?” Her voice is tired but warm, and he already thinks this was a mistake.

He should’ve started off smaller. Maybe come out to the angry looking clerk at the grocery store who always forgets to scan his coupons and work his way up from there.

“Hi Ter-Bear.”

“It’s almost midnight, is everything okay?”

“Shit, did I wake you?” He hears movement on the other end of the line followed by a soft gurgling sound.

“No, no, no, you’re fine. I was up with Rosie, she’s doing this super fun thing where she wants to be fed every hour, but only between the hours of 10 PM and 8 AM.”

“So only when you’re asleep then?”

“Babies are dicks,” she deadpans. “The big eyes and the soft skin are just there to trick you into looking after them.”

“I’m sorry, I can call back tomorrow, this isn’t - ”

“Hold up,” she stops him. “I want to hear about New York.”

“Seriously Terry, this is so not important.”

“And I so haven’t had a conversation that doesn’t involve the baby and whatever is currently leaking out of her in almost a week, so why don’t you go ahead and tell me all about New York?” He can tell from her tone that it’s not so much a request as it is an order.

“Uh, okay, sure, I can do that.” He can. That’s why he called. Sort of. “Well, the flights you got me were great. No...no turbulence or anything.”

“Patty, I already work for an airline, I really don’t need to hear about a lack of turbulence or your in-flight meal. How was New York?”

“Umm, right...the city was amazing. The weather was pretty shitty, but I managed to see most of the sights. And the food was unbelievable, really puts the place I live now to shame.”

“Hon, I’d say you live in a one horse town but I’m pretty sure the horses actually outnumber you. It’s not exactly a fair comparison.”

He smiles. Even with severe sleep deprivation she’s still sharper than him. “Fair point.”

“How’d the hotel work out for you? I know it wasn’t anything you would’ve picked for yourself, but the dates - ”

“It was - ” he stumbles. He wanted to work his way up to talking about David, but it’s hard to talk about the hotel without having it circle back to him. “ - fine." 

“Fine?” He can tell she’s not going to accept that for an answer because _fine_ isn’t a real answer. It’s a placeholder. She just doesn’t know what it’s a placeholder for. 

“I, uh...I didn’t really spend much time there actually.”

“Oh,” she replies, a little deflated. “Well, duh. I'd be pissed if you went all the way there just to sit in some shitty hotel room for three days.”

_Do it._

_But what it she -_

**_Do it._ **

“Yeah, no, that’s not...umm. I actually only stayed there the first night.”

There's a pause.

“...okay. So you found another hotel?”

This was like pulling teeth, except he's both the dentist and the patient in this scenario. 

“No. I...I kind of met someone.”

“Met someone,” she repeats, her voice loading the words precisely. 

“Yeah. And I, uh - I stayed with them over the weekend."

_Them._ How's that for a placeholder? 

He hears Terry chuckling, and in his mind she's fourteen years old again, laughing at the eight year old version of himself for complaining about a kissing scene in the movie they were watching. 

_Just wait until you finally kiss a girl Patty, then come talk to me._

Her voice snaps him back to the present. "Well damn Patty, good for you."

The hand that isn't holding the phone is clenched so tight that he can feel his nails biting into his palm. "Yeah," he agrees, struggling to keep the tension out of his voice. "Not really something I planned for, but…"

But what?

_But now I'm gay? One week in the city and now I'm a big ol' homo? Hey Ter-Bear, just calling to let you know that you subsidized me discovering what a big fan of dick I am?_

"You okay Patty? You sound kind of…off." 

"I'm good," he lied. "Just lost my voice a little over the weekend."

There's a pause on the other end of the line, and his stomach twists as he waits for her to call bullshit, but it doesn't come. "I get that way when I travel. Try some tea with honey," she suggests. "Doug and I swear by it."

"Yeah, definitely. I'll, uh...I’ll try that." He can't do this. He thought he could, but it is becoming abundantly clear that he can’t. "Listen Ter, I'll let you go. I'm sorry for calling so late, with the baby and everything."

"Oh shove it," she says amiably. "I told you when I got you the ticket that I don't get to do stuff like this. You know, fly to New York and shack up with someone for the weekend. I need to live vicariously through you. You didn't even tell me about the girl, what was she like?" 

He’s in David’s apartment again, rocking back and forth on his heels. _What do you want_ , David asks him. He wants to kiss him, so he does, and now he’s here. His stomach is hollow and his heart is in his throat and he can draw a line directly from that moment to this one. He almost wishes they were someone else’s memories, so he could still know every moment but none of the pain that comes with them. But David had asked what he wanted and he had answered, and now they’re his to own. 

Patrick blinks hard and his vision goes blurry. Stevie would be proud - he’s finally figured out how to wallow.

He has no idea how long Terry has been waiting for him to answer, but he finally registers the sound of her throat clearing. “Patty?” she asks hesitantly. “You still - ”

“David,” he chokes out. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes. He takes a shuddering breath and tries again. “David. The person who I stayed with all weekend - his name is David.”

There’s a long silence on the other end of the line, and now it’s Patrick’s turn to wonder if Terry is still there, or if maybe the call dropped at the most inopportune time in the world. But then her voice is there in his ear, so soft it almost kills him. “ _Oh Patrick_.” 

He holds the phone away from his face so he can wipe at his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice thick.

“For what?” she asks gently.

“For lying to you. For lying to all of you, for all these years - I’m so sorry.”

“Woah, woah, woah, back up.” The gentleness is gone from her voice, replaced with a strain of incredulity. “You think you have to apologize for _that_?”

Patrick’s instinct is to tell her that of course he does. How could he not? He’s thirty years old for God’s sake, he was engaged, _Terry was supposed to give a toast at the wedding_. He’d braced himself for her to be upset, for a single apology delivered over the phone to not be enough, but he hadn’t accounted for the possibility that she wouldn’t want one to begin with. 

“I - I thought you’d be upset.”

“That you’re gay? Or bi? Pan? I don’t want to - ”

“Gay,” he interjects. “Definitely gay.”

“Alright, sure, gay it is.” She says it as easily as if he’d just selected a prize from the showcase on The Price is Right. “Why the hell would I be upset about that?”

“It’s not the being gay part that I thought you’d be mad about. I know you’re not - I mean, God Terry, I think I know you a little better than that.”

“Then why?”

“Because I kept this from you. This - this _massive_ part of me, and I didn’t have the balls to just own up to it. I almost got married rather than admit it. And everyone loves Rachel so much - ”

“Okay, nope, that’s it,” she interjects. “Everybody out of the pool.”

“What?”

“Look, I can’t speak for the rest of the family - I mean, realistically I can, because we’ve all talked about this, but you’re not supposed to know that - but how we feel about Rachel has absolutely nothing to do with how we feel about you. For Christ’s sake, _you’re family_. You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother, and Rachel is a lovely girl, but those two things have absolutely fuck all to do with one another.”

Patrick forgot how much Terry likes to curse when she gets worked up. He thought the kids might have mellowed it out a bit, but apparently not.

“I just...I was so sure that you would see me differently. That if I was really who you thought I was then I wouldn’t have lied to you for all these years.”

She sighs softly, and there’s no edge in her voice when she speaks again. “Come on Patty, you didn’t just tell me you rob banks for a living, or that you’re breaking bad. You’re still you, aren’t you?”

He hesitates before answering. He wants to tell her yes - he’s the same Patrick she’s always known, the one she looked after like a little brother - but he doesn’t think he can. Because the Patrick who left for New York last week isn’t the same one who came back, is he? He looks the same, walks the same, sounds the same, but there’s more to him now. There are pieces - some big, some small - that he now carries in him, whether he wants to or not. 

Maybe he’s not different. 

Maybe he’s just...more.

“I’m still me,” he says. “But I’m still trying to figure out what that means.”

He hears soft baby noises coming from Rosie, a thousand miles away but still right next to him. 

“We all are sweetie. That’s just part of the deal.”

“What deal?” he asks.

He can hear the smile in her voice when she answers.

“Being human.”


	17. Worst case scenario

“I’m sorry David, I’m just not feeling it.”

“Mmkay.” David pinches the bridge of his nose and struggles to keep his voice level. “I get that you’re not feeling it, I really do, but you haven’t ‘felt’ any of the other places I’ve shown you either. I’ve got to be honest here Ethan - we’re reaching the bottom of a _very_ long list.”

He wonders if he’d have more patience with Ethan if he hadn’t been forced to play phone tag with him for six weeks just to get him to sit down for a meeting, especially since he was the one who’d reached out to David in the first place. But now they’re fast approaching the end of February, and Ethan is still operating under the foolish notion that they’re going to be putting on his show by the first week of April. 

David’s good at his job - he’s pulled shows together in less time than that before - but those were times when he had an actual venue to work with. Ethan has shot down almost every space that David has proposed, usually for some bullshit reason that involves words like ‘energy’ and ‘vibes’. He'd had very little patience for the man since the moment he and his top knot first walked through his door, but David was getting dangerously close to just calling the whole thing and passing Ethan off to another gallerist. It wasn’t like New York had a shortage of them.

“I know man, I know,” Ethan says, further convincing David that he doesn’t actually know anything. “But the space is just so critical to the work, _so critical_.”

He does this thing - the repeating the last two words of his sentence for emphasis - and it makes David want to choke him. Or maybe choke him, stop choking him, and then choke him one more time. For emphasis. 

“I understand that Ethan. It’s _literally_ my job to understand that. Hell, when you said that you didn’t think the gallery would be the right fit for your work, I was the first person to agree with you - ”

“Exactly, because - ”

David holds a finger up to silence him. “Oh no - hi there. Wasn’t finished talking. I _agreed_ with you. But that was before you shot down the space I found at Pier 54, the penthouse in the Flatiron Building, and the promenade in Hunter’s Point. I have exhausted almost every contact I have in order to try and find a place for your show.”

“And I appreciate that, I do,” Ethan tries to reassure him, with little success. “But I can’t let myself say yes to a space that I don’t feel at one with just because I’ve run out of options.”

“Well I hope you feel ‘at one’ with the state of New Jersey, because there is a very real possibility that that’s where I’m going to have to start looking next. Is that what you want? Are you in tune with the energy of Hoboken?”

The harshness of his tone seems to roll blissfully off Ethan’s back. He has this permanent stoned looking smile that David has to constantly fight the urge to slap off his face.

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” he remarks.

David isn’t sure he heard him correctly. “I’m sorry - what? New Jersey is always a bad idea.”

“No, I mean thinking outside the bounds of the city. Maybe that’s been the problem all along. It’s not that the venues aren’t right - it’s that the city isn’t.”

The beginnings of a migraine, primarily the sensation of a needle lightly stabbing at the back of his eyeball, bloom with each word out of Ethan’s mouth. David takes in a deep breath through his nose and lets it out slowly. “Ethan, I feel the need to remind you here that you sought me out, the owner of a gallery in Soho. Okay? And you asked me, someone who has lived and worked in this city for over fifteen years, to find you a space in that very same city to host your show next month. And now, with only weeks to spare, you’re telling me that you want to explore options ‘outside the bounds of the city’?”

“This is why I came to you,” Ethan replies, rising from his seat. “I knew that you would understand my intention in a way that other gallerists simply couldn’t.”

David wildly thinks that his intention is actually to smother Ethan to death with his Canada Goose jacket, but he keeps his fists clenched tight at his side to stop himself from following through on that urge. 

Ethan is staring down at his phone, already checking out of the conversation despite the fact that David still has no idea what it is he expects from him. “Listen, I’ve got an early lunch to get to uptown. Take a couple days to gather some news ideas and we can reconnect on Friday, okay?”

He’s halfway out the door before David can object, tossing a breezy “Ciao!” over his shoulder.

“Ciao,” David repeats to the empty gallery. “Ciao is the word that man just said to me.”

  
  


**

  
  


David knows as soon as he pushes open his front door that someone is in his apartment. He can see the lights are on in the kitchen, despite his near fanatical habit for turning everything off before he leaves each morning. Ignoring his better instincts to turn around and walk right back out his door and down to security, he instead grabs his umbrella from its hook and grips its handle firmly.

He creeps down the front hallway as quietly as he can manage, pausing to take a deep breath before he swings around the corner, umbrella brandished above his head.

“Oh my fucking God!” he screams. Instead of a burglar or a serial killer, he finds his sister standing in the middle of his kitchen, sipping on coconut water and typing on her phone.

Alexis barely reacts to his outburst, glancing up from her phone and pointing at the umbrella clutched in his hands. “Why are you waving that around?”

His hands are shaking as he lowers them down. “I thought someone had broken in!”

“And you were going to fight them off with a Burberry umbrella?”

“How did you even get up here?” he asks, ignoring her question.

“Stefan let me up,” she replies, back to staring at her phone screen. 

“That’s funny. Because I was under the impression that I pay an exorbitant amount of money to live in a place that doesn’t allow strangers into my apartment.”

“Okay, first off, you don’t pay anything to live here - Mom and Dad do.” He flips her off; she sticks her tongue out at him. “And second, I’m not a stranger you dick, I’m your sister.” 

“You could be Anne fucking Wintour for all I care, I still wouldn’t want you in my apartment uninvited. Besides I, thought you were supposed to be in Johannesburg for another month.”

“That was the plan, but then Tanya left early to meet Lily Rose Depp in LA, and you know I haven’t been on speaking terms with her since the thing at the Grammy after party - ”

“She caught you making out with her dad.”

“It’s 2017, who hasn’t made out with Johnny Depp at some point? Anyway, I didn’t want to travel solo like some sort of _Eat, Pray, Love_ wannabe, so I figured I’d come here instead.”

David narrows his eyes skeptically. “You just ‘figured’ you’d come here? Totally spur of the moment, no other reason for you to show up uninvited?”

“Well maybe if you’d just answered your texts, I could have told you I was coming.”

“Oh that is fucking _rich_ come from you.”

“Umm, excuse me?”

His glare is a challenge. She really wants to play this game?

“I’m sorry, are you really going to claim the moral high ground when it comes to open communication? Remember your twenty-first birthday? Mom and I planned this huge party for you at Casa Loma, invited all your friends, even got Moby to DJ - and where were you? In Buenos fucking Aires, shacked up with an Argentinian cattle barron! Which you totally explained to us - three weeks after you missed the party.”

Alexis crosses her arms and purses her lips, but doesn’t deny his version of events.

“How about Dad’s retirement party in Saint Lucia? We didn’t even think to worry about you not showing up for that one! Three days on a tropical beach being waited on hand and foot? Should have been right up your alley. And where did you end up calling from the day we got back to Toronto?”

Her answer is an unintelligible mumble.

“Sorry, did quite catch that?”

“Dubrovnik,” she says petulantly.

David squeezes his eyes shut and nods dramatically. “Mmhmm, that was it. I mean, I guess it’s really Dad’s fault for retiring during Yacht Week. Couldn’t miss that, could you? Think of the Instagram stories your followers would have missed out on.”

Alexis lets out something halfway between a shriek and a groan, stomping her foot for added effect. “Ugh David, that’s not fair!”

“ _To me_ ,” he amends on her behalf. “It wasn’t fair _to me_.”

“Oh so this is just about you then. Not Mom and Dad?”

“Yeah, it was shitty for all of us, but please don’t pretend like it was their calls and texts that you were ignoring the entire time. They worried about you exactly as much as was socially required of them - or in Mom’s case as much as the tranquilizers would allow for - but they weren’t the ones reaching out to your friends to see if anyone had heard from you. They weren’t the ones checking the Interpol Yellow Notices every morning, hoping not to see a familiar face. I did. _Me_.”

Alexis slumps down into a bar stool, the defiance that held her body tightly coiled slowly draining away. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Well, I did.”

An uncomfortable silence stretches out between them. They don’t do this - talk about their emotions. Sure, they shout and bitch and cut each other down, but always with an underlying wink and a smirk that let them know they’re still safely coloring inside the lines.

“I’m sorry,” Alexis says, low enough that David barely catches it.

He waves a hand. “It’s fine, whatever.”

“No.” She reaches out and tugs at the arm of his sweater until he looks at her. “You’re right. I missed out on a lot, and I wasn’t very good about keeping in touch - ”

“Terrible,” David interjects. “You were terrible at it.”

“Oh my God David, do you want this apology or not?”

He glares at her but his lips stay shut.

“Fine, I was terrible at keeping in touch, okay? I was a shitty sister, and I’m sorry. But I’m here to make up for it.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why? I literally just gave a whole little speech about - ”

“No, I get that you feel guilty or whatever. I mean why now?”

“Because,” she pauses, and he wonders if she’s improvising this whole thing or she had an actual non-selfish motivation for being here. “Because...I think you got your heart broken.” The words are like a slap across the face to him, stinging the way that only absolute truth can.

“Excuse me?”

Alexis huffs and stomps her foot, the conversation clearly not going according to her plan.

“Mum and Dad haven’t heard from you in months, you haven’t returned a single one of my calls or texts since New Years. You only get like this when you’re going through a break up.”

He bristles at the accusation. “Oh, and how do I ‘get’?”

“You know! All broody and silent.”

He can’t tell her she’s wrong - they both know she’s not - so instead he digs a pack of Oreos out of the cabinet and shoves one in his mouth.

“Oh God, I didn’t know things were this bad,” Alexis says quietly.

David struggles to speak through a mouthful of cookie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re eating store bought cookies David. I haven’t seen you do that since Tina dumped you after senior prom because she needed to ‘find herself’.” She throws up air quotes around the phrase.

“More like find herself on Adam Bisset’s dick.” He furiously shoves another cookie in his mouth.

Alexis reaches across the counter and takes the package from him. “So...what happened?”

He can feel her eyes on him as he meticulously wipes a smattering of crumbs off his sweater. “With what?”

“With Patrick.” 

His stomach gives a little twist at the name, but he keeps his face cool and unaffected. “Nothing happened,” he lies. “He went home.”

“Nothing happened,” Alexis repeats flatly. David raises his brows as though he doesn’t know what more she expects from him. “You really expect me to believe that?”

“I expect you to be an annoying little ‘b’ about most things, and this is no exception.”

“So you’re telling me it’s a complete coincidence that you spend a weekend having mind blowing - ”

“Your words, not mine,” David interjects.

Alexis plows on. “Mind blowing sex with a sweet little closeted tourist, he goes back home, and then you just so happen to go radio silent on all of us for a month and half afterwards?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

“Well then I’m telling you you’re full of shit.”

David throws his hands up in the air and makes for his bar cart. He’s normally not big on day drinking but it is very early and he is very sober, and he only has the power to change one of those conditions. 

He pours himself two fingers of whiskey, tosses it back in one harsh gulp, and turns back to his sister. “Did you ever consider the idea that I might have a really good reason for not wanting to talk to you?”

Alexis crosses her arms defensively. “Besides you being a drama queen?”

“No, I’m talking about the fact that I wouldn’t even be in this situation if it weren’t for you.”

She looks at him as though he’d just slapped her. “Oh my God David, how is any of this my fault?”

“Because _you_ were the one who convinced me to go out that night! I was perfectly fine with staying in, watching a Meg Ryan movie, popping an Ativan, and going to bed early. But you had to worm your way into my head and convince me that it would be good for me to go out! So I went out, and I met Patrick, and now instead of just getting over being rejected by two people, I’ve added a third.”

“I thought you said he went home?”

“So?”

“So how does that count as rejecting you? Did you ask him to stay?”

David bites down hard on the inside of his cheek. He knows how this is going to sound.

“Well?” Alexis presses him.

“No,” he relents. “No I…I told him he should go.”

It’s unsettling the way Alexis looks at him like she’s not the least bit surprised by his admission. Confusion, outrage, annoyance - those are things he can deal with, things he can tell her exactly where to shove. But to admit something embarrassing, something profoundly fucking stupid, and to know that it is exactly what she expected from him is a much more bitter pill to swallow.

“David…”

“Don’t ‘David’ me, I don’t want to hear it.”

He pours himself another drink and drops on to his couch. From here he’s got a view straight out onto the Hudson. It’s pretty spectacular in the summer, the kind of sunsets people literally pay millions for. They bathe his living room in slices of apricot and peach, making the air glow warm. But winter casts a pall over the view that no amount of money can fix. The river, buildings, and sky all blend together in a dull pallet of grays and blacks. 

The cushion dips next to him as Alexis joins him, but he keeps his gaze fixed out on the river.

“He didn’t reject you,” she tells him, as if saying it makes it true. “You know that right?”

David swirls his glass, watching the ice cubes spin and bounce in the amber liquid. “He didn’t have to. I saved him the trouble.”

“Why did anybody have to get rejected? Like...you knew he lived in Canada, right? There was a built in expiration date. No one had to get their feelings hurt.”

How much pride does he have left? It’s an important question.

Any answer greater than zero, and he would just lie. Tell her that he had a really strong feeling that Patrick was about to make some great profession of emotion, and it was the kinder thing - the more _humane_ thing - to call the curtain on the whole affair. He could pretend sending him away was a necessary evil, if only because it spared them both the embarrassment of David having to turn him down.

But if he’s being honest with himself, admittedly a novel exercise for him, he doesn’t have a hell of a lot to feel proud of right now. He lives in an apartment he didn’t pay for. He works a job that he cares less and less about each day. And his love life. Well, the entirety of his love life walked out the door last month, and damned if he wasn’t the one who sent it packing. Apparently the last of his pride went with it.

Since lying is only for those who have face left to save, he decides to give the truth a shot instead.

“I told him to leave because if I hadn’t,” he pauses, realizing this is the last exit on the highway before he can no longer turn the car around. _Oh screw it_. “I would’ve asked him to stay.”

He can see her head whip to face him out of the corner of his eye, but he still can’t bring himself to look at her. He won’t be able to get this out if he does.

“I was about two seconds away from begging him to stay with me, even if it was just for one more day, and then he would have actually had to reject me. So there I was - damned if I do, damned if I don’t - and I figured it would be better if I just ripped the band-aid off myself.” He drains the last of his glass and places it on the coffee table. He has no desire for another. “Call it an act of self-preservation.”

Alexis shakes her head at his conclusion. “More like self-sabotage.” 

The words bite at him, even though there’s no venom to them. 

“Haven’t you read Dad’s book?” The question earns him a blank stare. “Chapter Four: If you’re going to be one thing, you should be consistent.”

To call David’s dating history sad is like calling the low waisted jeans trend an error in judgement. Technically correct, but it doesn’t even begin to describe the scope of the tragedy.

It’s filled with a revolving door of users, people who took and took and took from David, and gave him nothing in return but heartbreak, trust issues, and, in one particularly humiliating incident, a brief case of the clap. Easily treatable, aside from the fact that antibiotics are wildly ineffective against shame and embarrassment. 

But there were some cases, dotted here and there throughout his life, where David had been the one to deliver the killstroke to the relationship, usually to spare himself from what he believed to be the inevitable.

There was Rebecca, a girl he’d met in a Freshman seminar on Dali and the roots of surrealism. She was a knockout - smart, wickedly funny, with this amazing shock of bright red hair that looked like it was on fire in the sun. She was also surprisingly sheltered, having grown up in a small town in upstate New York with dreams of moving to the city and working in art restoration someday. She’d tried to play it cool when David explained the whole pansexuality thing to her, but he could tell right away that he’d thrown her through a loop. She’d tense up anytime he mentioned an ex-boyfriend, or if he got a lingering gaze from the cute barista at the Starbucks they stopped at most mornings. At least, he thought she did. So he’d done them both a favor, and showed up early to a party they were both supposed to attend one Friday night with a singular goal in mind. She walked in to find him on a couch, making out with a guy he knew from his dorm who’d flirted with him during orientation - Blake, or maybe Ben? - and that had been the end of that. After, when she stopped by to return his iPod and a sweater he’d lent her, she’d looked at him like she was looking at a total stranger and told him that she didn’t care that he’d cheated with a guy, she just cared that he’d cheated.

There was Alexander, a French social media director for one of the major publishing houses. They’d only been seeing each other a few weeks when he asked if David wanted to take a spur of the moment trip with him to Paris over the Labor Day weekend. He took this to mean that Alexander would be introducing him to his family while they were there, a hurdle he’d never actually been in a relationship long enough to have to deal with. Rather than try to explain his trepidations, he’d ghosted Alexander at the airport, and dodged his calls and texts for a few weeks until they’d petered out entirely. It wasn’t until the following year that he found out through a friend of a friend that his family didn’t actually live in Paris. His parents lived year round in Réunion, and his sister taught elementary French and English in Taiwan. Whatever Alexander had planned for them that weekend, meeting his family hadn’t been it.

Or Sammy, the non-binary pastry chef, who David had cut loose as soon as they asked him to come to march at City Hall over a proposed bathroom bill. It wasn’t that he wasn’t adamantly opposed to the bill itself, but that political activism had never and would never be his scene. He didn’t march or wave signs; he didn’t work phone banks or knock on doors. He was the first to grab his checkbook if solicited for a cause he believed in, but activities that demanded that he interact with people who might not have any interest in interacting with him made him nauseous to even consider. It went against one of the core drives of his being - the desire to be left the hell alone. Rather than explaining all that to Sammy, who would have undoubtedly tried to convince him of how selfish he was being, he simply told them he wasn’t looking for a serious relationship, even if he would have liked nothing more at the time.

There were others throughout the years. One night stands who’d wanted more than just one night. Friends who thought they should give a relationship a try. But David knew a failure to meet expectations when he saw it coming. Years of disappointing his father meant he could smell it from fifty paces. So he shut them down where and when he could, adopting the philosophy that the easiest way to avoid a car crash was to simply never get behind the wheel.

The silence between them is stretching thin, and he’s waiting for the moment where Alexis breaks it to berate him over another in a long line of romantic failures. But then she surprises him with a question he never expected her to ask. “Do you know why your Mom’s favorite?”

Okay, he might need that third drink. “I am not.”

“Yes, you are.” She doesn’t sound particularly upset about it. “It’s fine. I’m Dad’s favorite.”

He glares at her but, yet again, they both know she’s right. 

“So, do you know why?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. You did steal her nude Valentino pumps for homecoming and broke one of the heels on the sewer grate. I’ve seen her hold grudges over less.”

“No,” she huffs impatiently. “I mean, yes, she still brings that up every time I see her, but no. That’s not why.”

“Enlighten me then.” He doesn’t have the energy to play twenty questions.

“You remember how any time one of us started to make a fuss - and by fuss I mean, like, any show of human emotion above smiling or frowning - she’d hand us off to Adelina?”

He remembers it well. What he remembers even better is telling Patrick about it at the Met. 

_Why have kids if you’re just going to hand them off to someone else the second it comes time to actually be a parent?_

It was a fair question, even though Patrick had backtracked immediately for fear of having offended David.

“Yeah,” he admits. “So what?”

“So...you got really good at it. At pretending to be fine, even when you weren’t, just to keep Mom around.”

“And you weren’t?”

“Nope. In fact, I was purposefully bad at it. If talking too loud was enough to annoy her, then I figured I’d may as well scream.”

David can’t hold back his snort at the whole theory. “Didn’t you say you were here because I was avoiding Mom and Dad’s calls? Not exactly trying to keep her around anymore, am I?”

“Not her, no.”

She doesn’t elaborate any further, and her words hang heavy in the air between them.

“What are you trying to say exactly?” he asks, even though he thinks he already knows the answer.

“I’m saying you got good at making yourself small when you thought it would make people stick around.”

David doesn’t think anyone’s ever accused of making himself small. Quite the opposite actually. His voice, his clothes, his opinions on the fashion choices of others - all things he defines himself by and not a single one of them makes him _less_ noticeable.

“I’m sorry, have we not met before? Need I remind you of the time Adam Lambert had me escorted from his birthday party because I accused him of lip syncing at his Vegas show with Queen? Which he _totally_ did by the way.”

“I’m talking about your relationships David. You put up with so much bullshit just to keep people around even when they’re terrible for you. And when you think they want something from you that you can’t give, you blow the whole thing up instead of just having a normal fucking conversation with them.”

“Where is this coming from?! Did you hook up with a therapist who sent you home in the morning with a reading list?”

“Eww, gross! No, I didn’t sleep with a therapist. I’ve just...I’ve just been thinking a lot lately.”

“That’s new,” he remarks.

“Oh fuck off,” she sighs. “I’ve just...ugh, I don’t know! I’ve just been thinking about all the weird shit Mom and Dad put us through when we were kids. I’m starting to think it gave us a really messed up idea about what a normal relationship looks like.”

“What do you have to complain about? Are your boyfriends too rich and famous for you? Do you really want to start flying commercial?”

Alexis gives him a withering glare and shakes her head.

“It just kind of hit me that I’ve spent my life doing whatever I want, whenever I want - just like Mom. Because I always thought that eventually I’d find someone willing to follow me around for it all - just like Dad.”

He knows exactly what she means. For all his faults, their father’s one unimpeachable quality was his complete and utter devotion to their mother. Anyone who talked to Moira for more than five minutes would understand just how daunting it would be to sign up for an entire lifetime with her, but after all these years Johnny looked at her like she was a little piece of heaven put on earth just for him. David could almost admire it, if he didn’t know deep down that it meant his dad would always love her more than he loved either of his children. Not just differently, but _more._

“So what?” David asks. 

“So, it’s taken me a long time to figure out that most relationships don’t work like that. Like, remember that time when Mark Ronson invited me to come to Glastonbury with him, but I told him I couldn’t go because I was supposed to be meeting Maeve in Costa Rica for that thing at her dad’s villa?”

“Vaguely.”

“Well there was no thing at her dad’s villa. I lied.”

David is straining to figure out what the hell any of this has to do with him, but it’s like she’s purposefully talking in riddles. “Why would you do that?”

“I was testing him. I thought that if he really liked me, he’d bail on the festival and come with me. But I’m only just starting to realize how stupid that was. That just because someone isn’t willing to put their life on hold for me doesn’t mean they don’t actually care about me.”

She has a point, but David’s hung up on another detail entirely.

“Wouldn’t he have been pretty pissed when he found he went all the way to Costa Rica for nothing?”

She crosses her arms defiantly and falls back into the couch. “I didn’t say it was a great plan.”

“No!” David says, the word dripping with sarcasm. “People love it when you test them, that’s why it always works out so well when they do it in movies.”

“Well I figured that the worst case scenario was that he’d say no and I’d know he wasn’t the one for me.”

“No, worst case scenario would have been me having a Mark Ronson for a brother-in-law.” 

“Well then at least it worked out for one of us.” She’s staring intently at her own fingernails to avoid meeting David’s eye.

“Look, I’m happy that you’re on this journey, or whatever the hell you want to call it. But please don’t drag me into it. I’m...I’m fine.”

She drops the fingernail ruse and rolls her eyes at him. “Sure, you’re fine. But are you actually happy?”

David instinctively shrinks away from her and puts an offended hand to his chest. “I think that might be the rudest thing you’ve ever asked me.”

“Okay, this is why you don’t get to act offended when I call you a drama queen. It’s a serious question David - are you happy?”

“I am so happy. As a matter of fact, I’m not just happy - I’m _thriving."_

“You once told me that the only people who use the word thriving are social media influencers and celebrities who just got out of rehab.”

Shit. He had absolutely said that.

“Where was this memory when you were studying for your SATs?”

“I failed my SATs because I was hungover when I took them, not because I’m stupid.”

He doesn’t think she’s stupid. Lots of people do, but he knows her too well for that. He doubts she could tell you the difference between John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway, and there’s a nonzero chance that she thinks Bikini Atoll is a swimwear brand, but there’s no other person he’d want by his side in the event that he has to escape a military coup or partisan uprising.

“No,” he relents, so quiet it’s almost a whisper. “No, I’m not happy.”

The cushions shift again and now Alexis is next to him, her left arm lightly pressing into his right. 

“Did Patrick make you happy?” she asks gently.

He wants to say yes. It’s the truth. It shouldn’t be hard to speak the truth. But he can feel tears prick at the corner of his eyes and he knows that if he opens his mouth right now, he won’t be able to stop more from coming.

He nods.

“It’s funny,” she says, her head resting gently on his shoulder. “All this talk about Patrick and I still don’t even know what he looks like. I tried to stalk him online but he basically has no social media presence except for a LinkedIn profile with no picture.”

David briefly considers trying to describe him to her before he remembers that he doesn’t have to. He digs out his phone from his front pocket and pulls up the picture that Patrick took of them on the steps of the Met. He had avoided looking at it for almost a full twenty-four hours after Patrick left before he finally caved; he’d looked at it almost every day since then.

He half expects her to squeal like he's just shown her a picture of a puppy. Instead she takes the phone from his hand and studies the screen quietly. He looks over to see a strange little smile on her face. “You look happy,” she says. “You both do.”

He glances down at the photo even though he knows it by heart. Patrick’s cheeks flushed pink from the cold, his own lips quirked to the side in a wry half-smile. His chin is resting lightly on Patrick’s shoulder. They’re about eight hours away from David ruining everything, but they don’t know it yet, so of course they look happy. Out of frame his arms are wrapped around Patrick’s waist, pulling him close, sharing warmth between them even through the layers of their coats. Alexis doesn't get to know about that. That’s just for him now.

“Shouldn’t you be telling me how wholesome he looks? Or asking if I picked him out of a JC Penney catalogue?”

“Would you like me to?”

“No,” he admits. “Just trying to keep you on brand.”

She hands him back his phone. “What’s he like?” she asks.

Where does he even begin to answer that question? Crazily the first thing that comes to mind is Patrick’s shoulders, and all the things he wanted to do to them but never got the chance. And his hands. Thighs too. God he misses his thighs. Now it just sounds like he’s got a menu running through his mind and if he starts reading it off he’s going to sound like a desperate horned up loser.

“Funny,” he says instead. “Kind. Pretty much nothing like anyone I’ve ever been with.”

“Well then I like him already.”

He pokes her in response and she slaps his hand away.

“I wish you could have met him.” He’s surprised to hear himself say it, and is even more surprised to find that he means it. He doesn’t usually bring any of his partners home to meet his family. Mostly because his relationships rarely last long enough to even consider taking that step, but also because he believes that if he really likes someone, then he probably shouldn’t subject them to his parents and sister if he wants them to stick around.

But Patrick...Patrick was the kind of guy you wanted to show off. Like a living breathing first place trophy. 

_Hey everybody, come see what I won._

“I don’t know,” Alexis says, yanking him out of his thoughts. “I might still get to meet him.”

David looks at her like she’s gone mad. “Have you not been paying attention? I burned that bridge. Like...thoroughly, to the ground.”

“Then go buy some wood and rebuild the damn thing.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh my God, you know what I mean! Call him and apologize.”

A million objections immediately come to mind, so David decides to start with the most obvious one. “And what makes you think he even wants to hear from me? It’s not like he’s texted me once in the past six weeks.”

“Of course he hasn’t, he’s embarrassed. Would you want to be the first one to reach out if you were in his shoes?”

He doesn’t want to be the first one to reach out in his own shoes, but he bites back the thought.

“What would I even say? I like him, okay? Like...a lot. But I don’t know if he likes - or...liked, whatever - me enough to want to start anything up again. What would we even be starting up? He lives in a foreign country for God’s sake!”

“Yeah, the foreign country of Canada,” Alexis rebuts. When David doesn’t offer a reply, she rightly adds, “We’re Canadian!”

“It’s still a long distance relationship. I don’t do long distance relationships.”

“You consider Queens a long distance relationship so you’ll forgive me if I don’t take your objection very seriously. Look, you have no way of knowing the answer to any of these questions. You just _don’t_. All you can do is say screw it and try.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not scared of anything.”

She surprises him by throwing her head back and laughing. Not a tinkly little giggle, but a real, from the belly laugh. “There’s plenty of stuff that scares me,” she says when she’s got her breath back. “The trick is to do them anyway. And if they don’t kill you, then it usually turns out they’re not quite so scary the next time.”

She makes it sound easy. Maybe for her it is. David might be older, but Alexis was always braver. 

When he says nothing, she pokes hard at his knee. “Whatever you’re going to do, you should figure it out soon. Because he’s a little button, and if you don’t hurry up, some other guy is going to come along and snatch him up.”

“And if he turns me down?”

She stares out at the skyline and shrugs. “Would it really be so much worse than not knowing?”

**

**David: so I think I found a venue. it’s definitely outside the city, but it might be perfect for you**

**Ethan: brilliant**

**Ethan: perfection is all I’m asking for**

**Ethan: where is it?**

**David: have you ever been to Toronto?**

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Personally I think Alexis was always going to figure out the personal growth thing all on her own. And I refuse to write her as a ditz. Our girl has been through too much shit for that.


	18. Full Cusack

**Patrick: 911**

**Stevie: seriously?**

**Patrick: youre not supposed to question 911. help me!**

**Stevie: when?**

**Patrick: two minutes. im pretending to go to the bathroom**

**Stevie: dead grandma?**

**Patrick: dead anyone, just do it**

Keith looks up with a smile when Patrick returns to their booth.

“Sorry about that,” Patrick says, placing his phone face up on the table. “Long line.” 

Keith dismisses his apology with the wave of a hand. “I was getting worried I’d scared you off.”

Patrick, who doesn’t trust his poker face right now, buries his head in the menu before he answers. “Nope!” He cringes at the volume of his own voice. He steals a glance at his phone, willing the call to come through. “Not at all.”

He looks up to see Keith start to open his mouth, but whatever he’s about to say is drowned out by the soft chimes of Patrick’s ringtone. He has it pressed to his ear with almost inhuman speed. 

“Hello?”

“Come quick Patrick,” Stevie says in a rigidly monotone voice, with all the enthusiasm of a student called upon to read the periodic table of elements out loud. “My grandmother has been crushed beneath a tractor. Woe...the horror.”

He’s going to need to have a serious conversation with her about committing to these calls later.

“Oh my God,” he replies, making an effort to sound like he’s responding to an actual emergency. “Is she alright?”

“I can see her intestines, so probably not.”

Patrick puts a hand up to his mouth, partially to sell the drama, but mainly to hide the smile that’s fighting to break out on his face.

“Yeah, no, of course I’ll be there. What hospital are they taking her to?”

He steals a glance at Keith who thankfully looks appropriately concerned over the nature of Patrick’s fake phone call. Patrick gestures to the phone and mouths a _‘sorry’_ at him.

“Honestly at this point we’ll probably just leave her in the field. The animals will take her by morning, it’s what she would have wanted.” He has to act fast to disguise his laughter as a small coughing fit. He’s going to fucking kill her.

“Alright, I’ll be there soon.” He ends the call before she can make this any harder for him. 

Patrick looks up at Keith apologetically. “It’s my best friend’s grandmother, she’s been in a bad car accident. I really have to - ”

Keither reaches over and pats his arm reassuringly. “Say no more. Go be there for your friend.”

“You’re sure?” Patrick asks, already sliding on his jacket. He fishes a twenty out of his pocket and tosses it on the table.

“Of course. Car accident trumps dinner and drinks. I wouldn’t mind a rain check though?” He smiles sweetly at Patrick, who suddenly remembers how those dimples had caught his eye when he first saw Keith’s profile. They’re not doing much for him now.

“Absolutely.” He debates shaking his hand, or maybe kissing him on the cheek, but then he remembers that he’s probably never going to see him again anyway, and settles for a wave as he backs away from the table. 

**

“So what was wrong with this one?” Stevie asks as she passes him a bottle opener.

He cracks open his beer but doesn’t even bother taking a sip. “Oh I don’t know. Maybe the fact that within thirty seconds of us ordering our drinks he asked me if I considered myself a power bottom?”

His explanation catches Stevie mid-sip and she snorts hard enough to send beer shooting straight out of her nose. “He _what_?”

“Right?! Worst part is, I don’t even know if I should be flattered or offended by the question, ‘cause I don’t know what the hell a ’power bottom’ is.” Okay, now he can start drinking.

Stevie pulls out her phone and it takes him a second to register what she’s doing. “Do _not_ Google it.”

“You don’t want to know?”

“Ignorance is bliss.”

“Seriously? Not even a little?”

He hesitates. Of course he wants to know, he was just planning on waiting until he got home to look it up on his own.

He tries to tell her no again but she throws up a finger to shut him up. “Nope, I saw that pause - you want this as much as I do.” She looks back down at her screen. “Okay, so according to Urban Dictionary - ”

“The most reputable source of knowledge you could find,” Patrick mutters.

“According to Urban Dictionary,” Stevie repeats even louder this time, “Power bottom is a term for a bottom who enjoys maintaining control over the top and/or the penetration, the normally dominant role in gay male sex.” Just when he thinks it can't get any worse she adds, "It also links to something called a 'pillow princess'. If that's something you're interested in..."

Patrick can feel his face turning several shades of scarlet as she looks at him pointedly. The sound of her clearing her throat is almost theatrically loud. “Well then - ”

“Shut up,” he warns her. 

“So when you and David - ”

“Shut - ”

“Like...I know you said he was taller, but does that necessarily - ”

“Up - ”

“Do you sort of huddle up beforehand and decide who’s doing what?”

“Stevie I swear to God!”

“Or do you just take turns?”

He launches a pillow at her head faster than she can duck, and the force of it almost pushes her off the couch. He’s worried it might have hurt until she bounces back up laughing.

“Are you done now?” he demands.

It takes her another minute or so to catch her breath, but eventually the laughter subsides to the point where she can have a conversation again. “Okay, sorry, I’m back. What were we talking about?”

“Oh fuck you, you know exactly what we were talking about.”

“Strong language to be using with the person who sprung you from your date.” He’d take the admonishment more seriously if she wasn’t usually the one swearing like an old sailor. “But seriously, what were we actually talking about before we took that little detour?”

“I was just saying how much of a turnoff it was to get... _that_ kind of question so early on in the evening.”

Stevie screws up her face like there’s something she really wants to say, but is physically struggling to contain it. 

“Something you want to share with the class Stevie?”

She takes a deep breath and draws her fingers together in a weird zen-like move. “Okay - not that this is in any way my area of expertise - and I know I was joking before but I promise I’m being completely serious right now - but...isn’t that the sort of question you’d actually want the answer to early? ‘Cause...well...what if you’re not really the taking turns type, and you both really only like...please tell me you know where I’m going with this.”

Patrick, who can’t believe this is the conversation he’s having right now, looks at her flatly. 

“I mean,” she pauses, apparently struggling to figure out how to phrase the next part delicately, “Like, to make a sandwich you need meat and bread, right? Well….what if you’re both the meat?”

“Oh for the love of God.” He buries his face in his palms. This is what his life has come to. He’s deli meat. Lonely, single, deli meat.

Utter absurdity of her chosen metaphor aside, he knows Stevie has a point. He’s been doing some research in the weeks since he got back from New York, mainly about things he figures he would already know about if it hadn’t taken him until he was thirty to figure himself out. A cultural crash course of sorts.

He’d picked up books on everything from the Stonewall Riots to Robert Mapplethorpe to a novelization of Angels in America.

He binge watched five season of Queer as Folk in under a week, then the ten episodes of the original version from the UK, which he didn’t enjoy nearly as much, but he did get a kick out of watching the guy from Game of Thrones make out with the dude from Pacific Rim. 

He downloaded Grindr, then deleted it an hour later. That was how long it took him to receive his first unsolicited dick pic, immediately followed by someone asking him if he was ‘cut’. Tinder had been a bit kinder to him.

There was some porn. Okay, there was a lot of porn. He figured it was worth investing the time to find out what he liked. Unsurprisingly, it turned out he liked stuff that featured tall brunettes with five o’clock shadow, which was when he decided it may be safer to stick to erotic literature for a while. Luckily, there was no shortage of that on the internet either.

So the point she’s bringing up is not totally lost on him. He knows that some people are strictly tops, some are strictly bottoms, and some...

_“So you’re kind of a switch hitter then?”_

_“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds like a sports thing.”_

It’s not surprising how often the sex stuff circles back to David in his mind. It makes sense, what with him representing the sum total of Patrick’s sexual experiences with other men. But it’s not just that David is his only experience; it’s that David was _such_ a good experience. Everything, even the things that should have been intimidating, just came so easily with him. It was as simple as asking a question.

Can I…

_Yes_.

Is it alright if…

_Please._

There was no pressure to say yes, or to have everything go perfectly. 

He remembered his first time bottoming for David (he preferred to think of it that way as opposed to ‘the last time they were together’) and how even with all the prep work they did and how turned on they both were, it still felt like David was going to split him in half at first. So he asked him to wait, and he did, and then…

He had to stop thinking about this or he was going to have to explain an errant hard on to Stevie. 

“Okay, sure, it’s not an entirely unreasonable thing to ask,” he concedes. “I’m just saying, he couldn’t even wait for the appetizers to come before he brought it up?”

“I think that’s more a question of etiquette. Want me to ask Jake?”

“I’d rather you never bring up my sex life to Jake if you don’t mind. Besides, I don’t think first date etiquette is really a thing for him.”

“True. At this point I pretty much just text him a question mark.”

“How romantic.”

She chucks the pillow back at him. “I prefer efficient.” 

He easily blocks it with his arm and chuckles at her choice of vocabulary. He wonders if maybe his life wouldn’t be easier if he could approach things as casually as she does. No 911 calls or worrying if a kiss on the cheek is too intimate for a first date. Keith might have been a little overly-direct for his liking, but he was also very cute, and pretty funny, at least over text. If Patrick could just get out of his own head for a minute, he would probably be getting laid right now. Keith also said he was a hockey fan, so even if Patrick didn’t really get the whole power bottom thing (which he really wanted to research further, beyond the bounds of Urban Dictionary) they could have at least had a couple beers and caught the Leafs game. 

But no. Keith got the dead grandma line instead.

Stevie, as if she can read his mind, asks, “Was there actually anything wrong with this guy, aside from the lack of decorum?” She says the last word in a rather snooty British accent, as though Patrick had rejected him for using the wrong fork with dinner.

“Not really,” Patrick sighs. “He seemed nice enough. Actually looked like his profile picture, so bonus points for not catfishing me I guess.”

Stevie disappears to her kitchen and comes back with a massive bag of chips. She drops down cross legged on her couch with the bag in her lap, and narrows her eyes at Patrick. “Let me rephrase the question,” she says, casually popping a corn chip in her mouth. “Was there anything wrong with him other than the fact that he wasn’t David?”

The question lands on Patrick like a ton of bricks. “Excuse me?”

“Come on man. You’ve gone out with four different guys this month, five if we’re counting poor Keith, and none of them made it past the first date.”

“Yeah, and for good reason,” he replies defensively. 

“You say good, I say completely asinine.”

“Oh so it’s asinine to have standards now?”

She raises a finger. “There was Peter, the one who worked in forestry management.”

“He spent forty-five straight minutes talking about his cats. As in multiple. Hard to have a relationship if I can never actually enter his apartment without throwing back a bunch of Benadryl first.”

She puts up a second finger. “Chris, the grad student from Elmdale?”

“He was too young for me.” In truth Patrick had decided not to call Chris back before he even found out how old he was, but the fact that used the word ‘yeeted’ in casual conversation did point to a slight difference in maturity.

“He was only four years younger than you. How old is David again?”

He glares at her but doesn’t reply, which seems to give her as much satisfaction as if he did .

A third finger. “Adrien?”

“Acted personally offended by how bad my French was. I want a relationship, not a language immersion course.

Stevie hesitates for a second before reluctantly granting him a nod. “Yeah, fine, I’ll give you that one.”

“Thank you.”

“But what about Ken?” she adds, throwing up a fourth finger. 

That one brings Patrick up short. Ken had been really nice and seemed really into him without being too pushy. He should have liked Ken. He _wanted_ to like Ken. But he just...didn’t. Their date had felt like going on an interview for a job that he didn’t really want, no matter how great the benefits were.

“Well?” Stevie presses him.

“I told you, it was the shoes. I know it’s superficial, but they were so pointy and I couldn’t stop staring at them. Plus the shirt that looked like it came from Baby Gap.”

“And Keith makes five,” she says, wiggling all the fingers on her right hand at him. “I rest my case.”

“No, no, you haven’t - what case?! None of those had anything to do with David!”

“I think they had _everything_ to do with David. I think that every single one of them is getting measured up against a guy that you had a straight up Hollywood movie level meet-cute with, followed by two days of just some real good dicking - ”

“Oh, _gross_.”

“ - and then to top it all off, he asks you to leave before you can tell him how you really feel - ”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“ - so now he’s the one that got away. What Tinder rando is ever going to be able to compete with that?”

Patrick stands up abruptly and starts pacing the length of her living room. It only amounts to about three steps in either direction, but his mind is racing and he couldn’t stay sitting down.

“You make - ” he stops himself, not sure if it’s a good idea to say this out loud. “You make it sound like I’m in love with him.”

Patrick makes a dozen more passes of the room before he registers the fact that Stevie isn’t saying anything. He stops mid-stride and looks at her. She’s chewing at her bottom lip nervously, and she’s got the same look she had before. The ‘ _do I really have to say it_ ’ look.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he groans. “I am not in love with him!”

Stevie’s shoulders slump and she pulls her knees up to her chest. The fact that she’s the one who looks like she doesn’t want to be having this conversation right now is almost laughable to him.

“Would it be so bad?” she asks. “If you were?”

Patrick opens and closes his mouth repeatedly as he cycles through the seemingly endless number of responses to that question. All of them fall somewhere along the spectrum from ‘ _Yes, quite'_ to ‘ _Are you fucking kidding me, of course it would be, how can you even ask that question'_. His brain is a magic eight back and every shake is coming up ‘outlook not so good’.

“Stevie, I can’t - _can not_ \- be in love with the first guy I ever slept with. Especially when we were only together for two days and change.”

“Are you objecting more to the fact that he was the first dude you banged or to the length of the relationship?”

“There was no relationship!”

“We both know I disagree, but just humor me. Which part matters more to you?”

“I don’t know,” Patrick replies, the outrage slipping out of his voice and being replaced by confusion. “Both?”

He sits down at her kitchen table and drums a mindless beat on the peeling countertop just to give his hands something to do. “I can’t just go falling for the first guy who touches my dick.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffs.

“No,” she declares, rising from the couch to join him at the table. “I’m serious - tell me why not?”

“Because...because…” It’s one of those times where the answer seems obvious until you have to actually put it into words. “Because that’s just not how it works. Maybe in movies, where they can call it love at first sight so the audience doesn’t question it, but not in real life.”

It suddenly strikes him just how odd it is that she’s the one he has to have this argument with. This is the same person who only moments ago described her ideal hook up as ‘efficient’.

“See, now here’s what I don’t get: you were engaged to be married to your high school sweetheart, right?”

He’d finally told her the whole truth about Rachel shortly after coming back from New York. It only seemed right, given that she knew everything about David.

“Yeah, so?”

“So,” she says, slapping her hand on the table for emphasis, “you were going to marry the first girl whoever touched your dick, and nobody had a problem with that, did they?”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s never really thought about it in those terms before. Of all the reasons that his relationship with Rachel had never felt quite right to him, the fact that they were one another’s high school sweethearts hadn’t really been one of them. If anything it was one of the things that made him stick around a lot longer than he should have. It was romantic. At least, that’s what everyone kept telling him. Their parents, their friends, even people they’d just met. They all seemed to dig the idea of them spending their lives with their first love. In their minds, there was no difference between ‘first love’ and ‘true love’. 

“No,” he admits. “Everyone was happy for us.”

“Of course they were. It must have seemed romantic as shit to them.”

“Doesn’t that kind of disprove your point though? That falling for the first person you sleep with isn’t actually a good idea.”

“I’m not saying it’s good or bad. I’m just saying that what other people think about it shouldn’t factor into your decision. People are idiots.”

“You’re people,” he points out. 

“Yup,” she agrees, and polishes off the last of her beer. “And I’m the biggest idiot of them all. Just look at the walking-talking dildo I keep having sex with.”

Patrick smiles for what might be the first time since he left Keith at the restaurant. The dildo really doesn’t deserve her. 

“Look, if the two day really thing bothers you, then fine. I get it. But if you’re only saying it bothers you because you think it should, or you think other people will think it should, then you’re an idiot too.”

He wishes it was as easy as she makes it sound. He leans back until he feels his head hit the wall behind him, and thinks of all the thoughts he’d pretended not to have during his last night with David. Thoughts about how much he would miss him. Not just the things he had done to him, but his skin, his smile, his way of looking at Patrick with complete and utter focus, like there was no one else in the world who could pull away his gaze while they were together. How neatly their seemingly completely different personalities slotted together with ease. All the things he thought but didn’t say because he didn’t want to scare David away. 

“It’s not enough time,” he says. “I’m not talking about, you know...societal expectations or whatever. Two days...two days just isn’t enough time to decide you’re in love.” Just saying it out loud sounds ridiculous to him.

“I’ve never actually been in love before, so take this with a grain of salt, but I don’t think it’s something you get to decide. It just happens.” It's hard to disagree with her when he finds himself thinking of David both as a person and as an event. An event that blew up his life. “I’m not saying you should have gotten married after two days. I’m not even saying you should have told him.”

“Then what does it even matter?”

“It matters because I don’t think you’re ever going to move on unless you can just admit to yourself how important David was. You loved him, for a little bit. Enough that you miss him. Enough that you keep comparing every guy you meet to him.”

He wants so badly to tell her she’s wrong. Why can’t anything be easy for him? Why does it feel like he’s been playing life on hard mode for the past fifteen years, even now that he’s out? Why can’t he just catch his breath, just for a minute? Doesn’t he deserve that? 

“Fine,” he says, because maybe nobody really deserves anything, except for the truth. “I loved him. Just a little bit.”

Stevie smiles at him, and he appreciates the absence of pity in it. “There...was that so hard?”

“Big words coming from someone who brags about being emotionally stunted.”

“Only with myself,” she points out. “Doesn’t mean I’m blind to everyone else.”

“I loved him.” It’s easier to say, now that he got the first one out of the way. “So what do I do with that?”

Stevie lifts her shoulders in a shrug. “Nothing. There’s nothing to do.”

“Well that’s anticlimactic.”

“What? You want to go full Cusack and stand outside his apartment with a boombox?”

Knowing David’s fondness for eighties rom-coms, it’s not actually the worst idea she could have proposed. Aside from the fact that it was absolutely bananas levels crazy. He wasn’t going back to New York. He _definitely_ wasn't going back to see David. He was a lot of things, but a glutton for punishment wasn’t one of them.

“No, I think I’ll pass.”

“Then you move on. You said it, and the world didn’t come to an end, so what else can you do?”

She stands up, stretches her arms up, and yawns. His cue to exit. But then she stops and looks back down at him. “Except maybe cutting your Tinder dates a little more slack from now on,” she adds. “You know, given what they're up against.”

  
  


**

  
  


“Crackerjacks or the hot dog?” Jack asks, offering them both out to Patrick. This is his first date since he got the emotional dressing down from Stevie. He doesn’t know if the universe has finally decided to cut him some slack or if he just got the luck of the draw when he agreed to come out to a local hockey game with Jack, but he’s surprised to find how much he’s enjoying himself.

“Crackerjacks please.”

“Damn,” Jack remarks, but hands them over.

“Sorry, did you want them?”

“Nope,” he replies, dropping down on the bench next to Patrick. “I just wished I’d picked a less phallic looking food to eat on a first date.” He holds the hot dog up to his mouth and waggles his eyebrows at Patrick before taking a bite, who laughs so hard he almost chokes on his soda.

Jack’s funny; it’s what had first caught Patrick’s eye in his Tinder bio.

**Jack, 29**

**Electrical Engineer**

**Much like alternating current, I go both ways.**

Their initial conversation had come easily and the chemistry had translated well to real life. They had a lot in common - Jack was an only child too, from a town even smaller than Patrick’s in northern Alberta. They both had a fondness for Malcolm Gladwell books and terrible sci-fi movies. If they hadn’t met on a dating and hook up app, Patrick thought he could have just been hanging out with a good friend. A good friend with sandy blonde hair and eyes so blue he wanted to swim in them. It also didn’t hurt that Jack had managed to make it through the entire night without bringing up who was more likely to be taking it up the ass should the date end up back at his place.

It’s a thought that’s been on Patrick’s mind ever since they’d left the bar earlier - the chances of them going home together. Jack has been looking at him not unlike the way the bartender and the viking had looked at him at the gay bar. There’s no such thing as a guarantee but he doesn’t think he’ll have to twist Jack’s arm to take the date back to his place (because there was no way in hell they were going to Ray’s). 

Assuming he wants to. Does he? He knows is dick does. His dick has actually been campaigning hard from the moment he’d first swiped right, but it can’t be the only part of his body that gets a vote. His head and his heart are still annoyingly undecided. 

“We should go buy popsicles after this,” he suggests, popping a crackerjack into his mouth. “Maybe a bushel of bananas to round things out.”

Jack laughs a little more than Patrick thinks the joke deserves, but it helps him make up his mind. He feels his phone buzz in his pocket but he ignores it. 

“Listen, do you want- ”

His question is drowned out by the sounds of the final buzzer. Jack looks at him expectantly, and Patrick can’t help but stare at the mustard smeared on his chin.

“You’ve got some…” He gestures at the blotch until Jack gets the hint and reaches his hand up. He groans when it comes away yellow.

“I’m really on a roll here,” he laughs. “I’ll grab a napkin from the snack bar on our way out.”

They stand and start making their way towards the stairs. Patrick feels his phone buzz again. Probably Stevie checking in to see if he was going to need another 911 save. 

He digs it out while Jack makes a beeline for the snack bar. The sight of David’s name on his screen stops him dead in his tracks. He barely notices the person behind him bump into him and curse. His legs walk him over to an out of the way spot near the exit seemingly of their own volition. He stares down at the screen - three missed calls and two voicemails - and doesn’t quite comprehend it. For a fleeting moment he tries to remember if he has more than one contact in his phone with the name David, but he knows that he doesn’t. Just David Rose.

His heart feels like it’s crawling up into his throat and he swallows hard. His thumb hovers over the play button on the first voicemail when he feels a tap on his shoulder. 

“Ready to go?” asks Jack.

“I, uh...yeah.” He shakes his head as though trying to wake himself up. “Yeah, we should get going.” He tries to offer Jack a smile, but it doesn’t come easy.

They’re parked next to each other at the back of the lot, and the walk there is filled with Jack cheerfully attempting to make conversation, though most of it is sliding in one ear and right out the other. He can feel his phone in his jacket pocket, like it weighs a hundred pounds. 

“ - alright?”

He looks up and realizes that Jack has just asked him a question. 

“Sorry?”

“I asked if you were alright. You look kinda…” he trails off, and Patrick imagines he’s searching for the least offensive way to say ‘strange’ or maybe ‘pale’. 

“No - I mean, yeah - I’m fine. Just got really tired all of a sudden. I didn’t sleep very well last night, I think it’s catching up with me.” An inoffensive lie, and what that comes readily when he needs it.

“Oh,” Jack replies, deflating slightly. “So I take it you wouldn’t want to come back to my place for a nightcap then?” Patrick sees the hopefulness in his eyes, and it’s almost enough to stir a little guilt in him. 

“Not tonight,” he says, feigning disappointment. “I’m sorry, I didn’t expect to crash like this.” In truth he’s just glad they drove separately. 

“No worries,” Jack assures him. “Three years of grad school, I’m familiar with the effects of an all nighter.”

“Right, well...I had a really good time tonight.” This much, at least, is true.

“Same here. Can I give you a call later this week? You know, after you chip away at your sleep debt.”

“Definitely.” His hands are shoved in his pockets, the right one squeezing his phone tightly. “Looking forward to it.”

Then Jack’s leaning in, and Patrick realizes too late he’s going in for a kiss. Their lips meet, and it feels like nothing at all. Patrick counts: one Mississippi...two Mississippi…

But Jack pulls away before he can get to three, an odd look on his face. Maybe it felt like nothing to him too.

“G’night Patrick,” he says quietly, and turns toward his car. 

Patrick watches him get in and pull away, keeps watching until his tail lights disappear into the flow of traffic leaving the arena. 

“Goodnight Jack,” he says to the empty lot.

**

Patrick decides to hold off until he gets home to listen to the messages, resulting in the longest twenty minute drive of his life. Ray is out for his poker night, which spares him what he’s sure would have been some painfully polite small talk. 

He has the phone pressed to his ear before his bedroom door is even closed. 

“ _Hi David, it’s Patrick!_ ” David’s voice rings out. It’s been almost three months since he heard it but those four words, dumb as they are, are enough to send a jolt through him. “ _Wait...shit -_ ”

There’s a fumbling noise, and the message comes to an abrupt end. Patrick double checks the call log to see if he accidentally turned it off himself. No, the message was only three seconds long.

He plays it for himself one more time, snorting at the sound of David realizing what he’d just said. 

He scrolls down to the second message and checks the time before he starts in - thirty eight seconds. 

“ _Hey...umm...it’s David. David Rose. You’ve probably noticed I already left you a message, but if you could just do me a favor and delete that first one? That would be...great. Right, so, uh...I just wanted to give you a call and let you know that I’m going to be in Toronto next weekend. I’m hosting a show at a gallery in Junction Triangle. I don’t know if it would really be your thing. Umm...not that you don’t like art or...uh. I just meant there won’t be any French prostitutes at this one_.”

There’s an awkward laugh, and Patrick can hear the strain behind it.

“ _So if that sounds like something you might be interested in then I would...uh...I would love for you to come. To the show. To see the...art. Yeah. Give me a call or text or whatever and I can give you the details. Unless you don’t want to. Which I would...totally get. Okay...okay. Bye_.”

He listens to it again. And again. And another three times after that, until he practically has it memorized. 

_I would love for you to come._

Was this the equivalent of Cusack with a jukebox for the emotionally stunted male? Or was that just wishful thinking on his part? 

It was like David had sensed that Patrick was out on his first date that wasn’t a total disaster and picked that exact moment to reach out to him. He tries to pretend like the thought bothers him, because he’s pretty sure that it should, but it doesn’t. The fact that going on a date with Jack had felt like hanging out with one of his buddies from his high school baseball team was nice, but isn’t he allowed to want more than just ‘nice’? It’s barely an adjective. It doesn’t actually tell you anything about the person, other than the fact that you can’t think of a single interesting thing to say about them other than the fact that they’re not actively terrible.

Of all the things he misses about David, ‘nice’ isn’t one of them. And as much as Stevie has a point when it comes to the fact that he needs to stop comparing every guy he meets to David, that doesn’t mean he should settle for someone he doesn’t actually have chemistry with. It’s not his fault that David set a very high bar for chemistry.

He puts the phone down on his desk and stares at it, amazed at what that little chunk of plastic and circuitry is capable of doing to him. It’s taken him three months to settle into a new baseline for ‘normal’ in his life, and only thirty eight seconds for a voicemail to blow that baseline to hell. The sound of David’s voice was all it took to send his mind back to the first days of January - the taste of a freshly buttered bagel, the sound of ABBA coming through the ceiling, the feeling of David moving inside of him. 

There are times when he feels so removed from it all that it’s almost like it happened to someone else. But even seeing David’s name show up on his phone was enough to remind him that no, it had happened to him and no, time and distance weren’t going to make it any less important.

The question isn’t whether he’s going to respond to David, but how. He’s allowed to ask for what he wants - hell, David taught him that - but actually knowing what he wants still doesn’t come naturally. If Terry was right, maybe it never would. So what does he want from David?

Conversation?

Closure?

Another night in his bed?

_How about we make it a true Daily Double Alex?_

_Good luck to you Patrick, and remember to answer in the form of a question._

He picks up his phone before he can let himself overthink anymore than he already has, types out a text, and hits send. He reads it back and finds his only immediate regret is not stopping long enough to spell check.

**Patrick: hey, got your messge. both of them. send me the info.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two days ahead of schedule because this whole global pandemic is oddly terrifying and boring at the same time, so I've been writing to keep my mind off it.


	19. What doesn't kill you

David really thought that if anyone could follow a dress code, it would've been Alexis. Black and white. It shouldn’t have been hard. Hell, he would have accepted gray or silver in a pinch. He’d bet good money that if he went into her closet right now, there would be enough little black dresses in there to style the entire cast of America’s Next Top Model. Maybe even episode one, before anyone got eliminated. And yet there she is, standing in the middle of the gallery, looking like a goddamn chandelier. Her cocktail dress is so form fitting it may as well be painted on, with a high neckline that almost balances out the fact that it barely covers her ass. There isn’t a single inch of it that doesn’t sparkle gold even in the dim overhead lighting of the gallery floor.

He makes his way over to her, dodging catering staff putting the final touches on their stations, and waves a hand in front of her body. “Would it be wishful thinking to ask if you were planning on changing before everyone gets here?”

She plants a hand on her hip and looks down at herself. “Why would I do that?”

“Umm, maybe because I’m trying to cultivate a certain aesthetic for tonight, one that doesn’t involve you looking like Disco Ball Barbie. I told you what the dress code was.”

“Mmhmm, yeah, you totally did. But the thing is - this dress looks _really_ good on me.”

The worst part is that David actually agrees with her. Other than the fact that it’s triggering his anxiety, it is a great dress. Hell, if he had calves like hers he'd probably be wearing something just like it. 

Maybe. 

If it came in black. 

“Remind me again why I invited you?”

“Because I hooked you up with a caterer and entertainment for tonight with, like, zero notice," she says with a wink. 

David had been lucky when it came to securing the space - he’d gone to school with one of the co-owners, and had actually introduced him to his wife. They’d been high on ecstasy at a warehouse party in Red Hook at the time, but somehow that part of the story never made its way into the wedding speeches.

Unfortunately that was where his luck had run out. Every catering option just shy of hiring out the staff of a Boston Pizza was already booked for the first Friday in April, and when David tried to find a classically trained pianist for the evening, his searches kept turning up shitty DJs and SoundCloud rappers. Problems he wouldn’t have faced if Ethan had just pulled his head out of his own ass and agreed to have the show in New York. 

In the end it was Alexis who had surprised him by swooping in to save the day. Her friend Bree’s mother was originally supposed to be getting married on the date of the show, only to find out that her husband-to-be (who was himself two years younger than Bree) had been cheating on her with a SoulCycle instructor. Bad news for Bree’s mom, but good news for David as it meant that a catering company that was normally booked out eight months in advance now had an opening for a Friday night only three weeks away. 

The bigger surprise had been when Alexis managed to find him a pianist. Turned out she'd once hooked up with one of the program directors at the Royal Conservatory of Music, and as luck would have it, the poor bastard was still _just_ hung up enough on the girl that gave him his first blowjob that he didn't hesitate when she asked if he could recommend one of his students for the event. 

So when Alexis mentioned that she fully expected an invite to Ethan’s show, he couldn’t very well say no. 

“Fine, better question: why did you want to come? You’ve literally never shown an interest in any of my work.”

“And I still don’t. I’m here to meet Patrick.”

This is exactly the answer he was afraid of. 

“You are not here to _meet_ Patrick. I invited him so that I can apologize to him, not traumatize him further.”

“And what about meeting me would be traumatizing for him?”

He squints at her. “I don’t think you really want me to answer that question.”

She slaps his arm with the back of her hand, and he manically swipes at the point of contact to make sure she didn’t leave a smudge on his suit. The gesture would have seemed excessive if it weren't for Alexis's fondness for body glitter.

“Besides,” he says, finally satisfied that she didn’t do any permanent damage, “he might not even show up.”

“He said he’d be here.”

“People say lots of things. Maybe he was just being polite.” He doesn’t actually think Patrick would do that - lie about coming just to avoid seeming rude. But part of him almost wishes he would. Not because he doesn’t want to see him, but because he thinks it would be exactly what he deserves. They’d finally be even for the way David had shown him the door the last time they saw each other. A therapist would probably have a field day with that kind of thinking, but the glutton for punishment in him just can’t help it.

It’s a moot point anyway. When David had texted him the info for the opening, he'd gotten a response from Patrick less than a minute later saying he’d be there. It had sent a little thrill through him, a tiny sliver of hope that Patrick actually wanted to see him. Of course it took all of three seconds for the pessimist in him to point out that he could just be coming to tell David off, but either way it was out of his hands now. 

He snags a glass of champagne from a passing tray. He doesn’t even want a drink, but he needs something to do with his hands other than pulling out his phone every three seconds to check for messages. Alexis reaches over and gently plucks it from his grip. “You need to chill David. Having a panic attack before he even gets here is not a cute look. It'll make your face all splotchy.”

“Hmm, and we wouldn’t want that,” David replies dryly. Pot shots at his appearance aside, he’s actually kind of glad for her presence tonight. It’s comforting to have someone he can trade barbs with before he spends the next four hours schmoozing with buyers and art critics, the kind of people whose jobs are to be professionally unimpressed. 

The only thing he really regrets about inviting Patrick is that he’s going to have to sit through this whole thing too. He thought it would look too much like a poorly constructed booty call to ask him to come straight to his family’s apartment for drinks that night, so the only other option had been to extend an invite to the show.

As if on cue, Ethan appears on the gallery floor, dressed in a pair of impossibly tight tuxedo pants and a jacket with no shirt on underneath. 

“David!” he calls out, even though he’s already looking directly at him. “David, I have a question!”

“Kill me now,” David mutters low enough that only Alexis can hear. She pretends to take a sip of champagne to disguise her laugh. He doesn’t bother shouting back across the floor, instead waiting for Ethan to get close enough to have something that vaguely resembles a normal conversation.

“What is it Ethan?”

But Ethan’s not looking at him. His eyes are glued to Alexis, or, more specifically, the hemline of her dress. “And who is this golden muse you've brought with you?”

David makes zero attempt to stop his eyes from rolling. Alexis shoots him a wide-eyed look, one he recognizes as sibling shorthand for ‘ _are you fucking kidding me_ ’. For a second she looks uncannily like her mother. David says nothing, replying instead with a shrug that says ‘ _now you see what I’ve been dealing with_ ’. 

Ethan reaches out a hand that actually looks like it’s going to land on her hip before she steps nimbly out of reach. “Alexis Rose,” she says, with a smile devoid of any warmth. “David’s sister. You know, it’s been a hot minute since anyone’s called me their muse.”

"Not since Quentin?" David asks, enjoying the confusion on Ethan's face. 

"Nope," Alexis replies. "Not that I'm complaining. He never let me wear closed toe shoes."

Ethan stares in awkward silence at where his hand has been left hanging in the air. 

“You had a question for me?” David asks, redirecting his attention away from Alexis’s legs. 

“I, uh...yes. I did. The caterers.”

“What about them?”

“Are we sure about the layout?”

David bristles at Ethan’s use of the royal ‘we’, but tries to maintain his last, already frayed, thread of professionalism. “We are sure. They’re in areas of low foot traffic, but each one is within steps of one of your pieces. Close enough to force people to circulate by all of them, but not so close as to pull the attention.”

Ethan looks equal parts mollified and annoyed by David’s reassurance. He’s not offended - he's actually been wondering what was going to set Ethan off. It’s a standard part of the evening just before the guests are due to arrive when the artist, riddled with a last minute burst of self doubt, decides to micromanage some aspect of the show - the lights, the music, the food - all in an effort to feel some semblance of control. Half of David’s job on nights like this is to fix things before the artist can decide they're broken.

“Anything else?” he asks, and before Ethan can form a response David is placing a hand on the small of his back and nudging him in the direction of one of the catering tables. “No? Good. Now people are going to start arriving in the next twenty minutes or so, so I highly suggest you get some food in you now. You’re going to spend the next four hours talking almost non-stop, and you’re not going to realize how hungry you are until you’re almost ready to pass out.”

“I don't know about that. I went for a vitamin infusion earlier today, my energy levels have never felt more balanced.”

“Of course you did,” David says. “Just trust me, I’m speaking from experience here.” He gives him a shove towards the antipasto station and turns back to Alexis before he can say anything else.

“Is he always like this?” Alexis asks, face twisted like someone had just waved a plate of rotting fish under it. 

“Always,” David confirms. “He makes me wish the purge movies were real.”

“Oh God David, you wouldn’t last ten minutes.”

“True, but I doubt it would take that long to choke someone on their own man bun.”

**

David’s already spoken to half a dozen prospective buyers so far and he can’t recall a single conversation he had with any of them. He’s been too busy checking the doors out of the corner of his eye, jumping anytime a man shorter than five ten walks through them. It's only after he sends a plate of mushroom and herb crostini flying off the edge of a table that realizes he needs to get himself under control.

He tries to order a drink from the bar but the bartender is in the middle of some Tom Cruise à la Cocktail routine, showing off for a pair of disinterested young women who don't seem to realize that the cocaine chic look went out of style about twenty year ago.

He finally manages to flag down a passing waiter instead. “Whiskey, please. Neat.”

“Any preference on the type sir?”

“Brown and alcoholic,” David replies, shoving a tip into the waiter’s hand in hopes of speeding up his efforts. He hardly notices when Alexis slides in next to him at the bar.

“Umm...why did I just see the Arts editor for the Toronto Star in the bathroom peeling bits of mushroom out of her blow out?”

David buries his face in his hands to muffle his groan. “Because I’m an idiot. I thought I saw Patrick walk in, but it was just a lesbian with a high and tight in a blue suit.”

“What are you talking about? Patrick’s already here.”

David jolts up. It feels like Alexis just doused him with freezing cold water. “What? What are _you_ talking about?”

“He got here like half an hour ago, we’ve been talking over by that painting of the tree that looks like a penis.”

He looks around frantically but doesn't see him. “They all look like penises! That’s the point!”

“Oh my God David, chill! The one closest to the patio doors!”

He spins on his heel towards the patio and sure enough, there’s Patrick. He appears to be caught in a conversation with Ethan, who’s making sweeping gestures at a painting that does indeed look disturbingly like both a penis and a tree.

Seeing him in the flesh does something strange to his body. It’s like a shot of adrenaline with a dopamine chaser. His heart is trying its damndest to punch its way out of his chest, and he has conflicting urges to either wrap Patrick up in his arms or flee the building before he even talks to him. His dick is proposing a third option that involves a coat closet and David on his knees but there’s a reason he’s not giving it a vote. He can’t blame it though.

Unlike Alexis, Patrick knows how to follow a dress code. He’s wearing a simple but well tailored black suit over a fitted white dress shirt. The top two buttons hang open to reveal the top of his collar bone. David distinctly remembers how much Patrick seemed to enjoy the attention David and his teeth paid to that collar bone. Of all the hurdles he’d expected to face tonight, contending with the sight of Patrick’s chest wasn’t one of them.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was here?” he whispers harshly, as though Patrick can hear them from forty feet away.

“I thought you knew,” she insists. “And that you were just, you know, playing it cool.”

“Alexis, you have known me for almost my entire life, so I don’t know how this escaped your notice, but I am not cool. I am the opposite of cool. I am anxiety stuffed into a Saint Laurent suit.” He throws his hands up in defeat.

Alexis grabs hold of his shoulders and forces him to look at her. “Okay, listen to me - do I think you’re cool? No. Do I think you have your shit together? Also no. Do I - ”

“Okay, none of this is making me feel better,” he says, shaking off her hands.

“Right, sorry. My point was that despite all that stuff, you still deserve to be happy. You just," she pauses, smoothing on the lapels on his jacket. "You just have to want it.”

It would be nice if this whole thing was just a simple matter of him wanting Patrick. It's Patrick wanting him back that fills him with doubt.

He glances back at where Patrick is still talking to Ethan, wearing a painfully neutral expression and occasionally nodding at whatever absurd claim Ethan is probably making about his career or his 'process'. 

Turning back to Alexis, he takes a deep breath and unclenches his fists. “I can do this.”

“You can do this,” she echoes. 

“I deserve to be happy.”

“You deserve to be happy.”

“I’m good enough for Patrick.”

She pulls a face. “Okay let’s not get ahead of ourselves. He’s great. You're…well, you're a work-in-progress.”

He glares at her and she seems to realize that she’s veered off message.

“Sorry,” she adds. “You’re going to get there.”

“I am.” It’s half statement and half question, but he needs to hear himself say it.

“You are.” She takes him by the elbow and turns him around. “Now go do something scary.”

**

David can hear Ethan waxing poetic about his paintings as he approaches, and it makes him regret not getting there sooner. “Most of the work is self-inspired. You know, this whole project really forced me to look at my genitals in a way that I never had.” 

The need to redirect Ethan trumps his desire to immediately greet Patrick. “Ethan?” He taps him on the shoulder as he steals a glance at Patrick, who’s staring intently at the drink in his hand. “Michiko Hada is here all the way from Vancouver. She bought three different pieces at your first show. Now I know you said tonight wasn’t about the money but…”

“Understood,” Ethan replies, already scanning the room. He’s a tool, but he’s not stupid.

Then he’s gone, and it’s just him and Patrick left standing there. Patrick, who finally looks up from his drink, and offers David a nervous smile that almost cracks him in half. 

“Hi.” It’s a woefully inadequate greeting, but all the things that David rehearsed in his mind are slipping through his fingers like so much smoke.

“Hi.”

There’s a long beat of silence and before David can stop himself he leans down and brushes a kiss against Patrick’s cheek. When he pulls back he finds that Patrick is studying his face carefully, and David can’t help but wonder if he’s seeing him as he is now, standing in front of him, or if he’s seeing the David from three months ago, leaning against his dresser, coolly asking him to leave.

He clears his throat, which is growing tighter by the second. “I’m really glad you came,” he tells him, wondering if Patrick has any idea just how much he means it.

Another beat, and then he can see Patrick’s face and posture relax just a fraction, and a smile that appears to be genuine slowly blooms on his face. “Me too.”

As far as David is concerned, those two little words are the best thing he's ever heard. There’s so much he wants to say and they couldn’t be in a worse possible setting to say them in.

“Umm, so I kind of have to mingle and, uh...pretend to care about my client’s really shitty art for another couple hours.”

“Oh, you mean the male Georgia O'Keeffe?” Patrick asks.

David cringes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you come in or I would have saved you from that conversation a lot sooner.”

“It’s fine,” Patrick laughs. “I was talking to Alexis most of the time anyway.”

“Mmhmm, she mentioned that. Do I even want to know what she said about me?”

“All good things,” Patrick assures him, which he has a hard time believing. 

“Really? Nothing embarrassing?”

“Depends on whether or not you consider your time in the Lil’ Mister pageant circuit embarrassing or not.” 

He's going to fucking kill Alexis the next time he sees her. “I’ll have you know that I still have every single one of those trophies,” David says, his head held high. 

Patrick looks at him with what can’t be mistaken for anything other than affection. “Of course you do.”

It amazes David, how easy this is. How smoothly they slip back into bantering like it’s been three hours since they last saw each other, instead of three months. 

He looks out at the gallery floor and hates that he can’t just leave right now. “So…”

“Go,” Patrick tells him. “Make your forty percent commission.”

“You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“If you don’t then we’ll all have spent an evening looking at dick trees for nothing.”

It takes a lot of willpower not to pin Patrick against one of those awful paintings and kiss him like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do, but he settles for reaching out a hand and giving his arm a light squeeze of thanks instead.

“I’ll find you when it’s over. Then we can…”

He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. 

Talk?

Fuck? 

Pick out save-the-dates?

He’s done too much fantasizing and not enough planning, and the odds of him making an absolute fool of himself are very much not in his favor. 

“Sure,” Patrick says, sparing him from his own thoughts. “I’ll be here.”

**

It’s not the best show he’s ever put on, but between the amount of time he had to put it together and the actual theme of the paintings themselves (he’d taken to calling it arboreal pornography in his head), he's comfortable deeming the night a success.

They sold five pieces that night, and he expects to hear from Hada before the end of next week about two more he’d seen her eyeing. He's comfortably walking away with a commission in the low six figures, a fact that should probably make him a lot happier than it does. But all he can think of as he’s writing up the bills of sale is that Patrick probably doesn’t make as much in two years as David just did in one night. It doesn’t make him feel superior; it makes him feel like a fraud.

David is good at his job. That’s not ego talking - it’s the truth. Not many people could have salvaged this night the way he had, or put up with Ethan long enough to make it happen in the first place. But that doesn’t change the fact that he's standing here on the shoulders of his parents. It was their money that had bought him his first gallery back in New York. It wasn’t a loan; there was no bank waiting in the wings to collect their share should David fail. He’d been given a privileged opportunity, built upon an entire lifetime of privileged opportunities, and the fact that there was a safety net hanging beneath his every step was never in question.

Putting on a successful opening used to fill him with a sense of accomplishment. It was never really about the money. Why would it be for someone with his father's name cosigned on all his credit cards? What he wanted was to be known. He wanted his name on peoples’ lips. Important people - people with money, people with status, people who mattered. 

Except, he’s not sure who those people are any more. He remembers who he once thought they were. When he was fresh out of school it was the people whose names he saw mentioned over and over again in the Arts section of the New York Times. Not the artists themselves, who he maybe should have been paying closer attention to, but the people behind the scenes, who ran the galleries and hand selected the next generation of the contemporary art scene. He was bright eyed and bushy tailed and actually believed that those people were important, or at least making important decisions.

It took a few years for the shine to come off the apple. He remembers the exact moment it really hit home for him, just how wrong he’d been. It was 2011, and he was standing in the middle of an old pork processing plant in Hell’s Kitchen. Someone had come along a few years prior and had it gutted, no pun intended, and converted into a multipurpose art space. It had played host to off Broadway theater productions, performance artists, and even a small scale one-night-only burning man. Minus the temple being lit on fire at the end of the night, given that the building was almost a hundred and fifty years old and basically held together by prayers and asbestos.

He was there to see an artist that a fellow gallerist - friend would have been too strong a word - insisted was going to be the ‘next big thing’. The next big thing, it turned out, was a series of plaster casts of the artist’s breasts, each painted with a different Pixar character. All the classics were featured - Buzz and Woody, Nemo, that little boy scout kid from Up. One set was actually the little lamp character that hops out before the start of every movie over the production logo - the nipples were the lightbulbs.

He took a lap of the room before cornering Jonathan, the man who’d invited him in the first place.

“Umm, so what _exactly_ am I looking at here?” he’d asked, gesturing around at the exhibits.

“If I play this right, you’re looking at my new summer cottage in East Hampton,” he replied in a clipped English accent.

David had checked one of the tags when he’d first come in. The cheapest piece (featuring A Bug’s Life) ran a cool quarter of a million. He hadn’t bothered to check what they were charging for Wall-E.

“Crap,” David said. “They’re crap Jonathan. Please tell me you know this.”

Jonathan had shot him an annoyed look over his plate of hors d'oeuvres. “Who cares? It’s crap that sells.”

“Yeah, because it’s all tits.” He didn’t understand why he had to explain that. Sex sold. Always had, always would. No one was actually there because of whatever subversive message the little animated characters supposedly represented. They were there because someone had given them a pass to stare at boobs all night and claim it as a cultural exercise. 

Jonathan absentmindedly wiped a smattering of crumbs off his jacket and offered David a pitying smile. “Of course it’s all tits. That’s what pays my bills.”

David folded his arms tightly across his chest, not quite believing his own ears. “And you’re fine with that?”

“Look, you want to feature quality like Van Gogh? Manet? Kadinsky? Get a time machine. You want to actually make some scratch? Then it’s tits all the way down.”

It might have been a trick of the mind, but for just a moment David could have sworn he sounded American.

And now David is here, seven years later, cutting himself a check that was only made possible by an artist who decided to re-imagine his junk as a series of trees and shrubs. Hypocrisy thy name is David Rose. Earning money he doesn’t even need off the back of an artist he doesn’t believe in. He’s not sure he has any right to hope that Patrick will still respect him by the end of the night. He’s not sure he respects himself anymore.

Alexis materializes seemingly out of nowhere as he locks the office door. “So was it a good night?” 

“Christ, could you start wearing a bell or something?”

She points down at her feet. “Stilettos usually work better than a bell, but my feet were killing me.”

“Ugh, please tell me you weren’t walking around my show barefoot.”

“Give me some credit,” she huffs. “I waited until everyone left.”

His head snaps up. “Everyone?”

“Don’t worry, he’s still here.” She reaches out and taps a finger on the tip of his nose, like his anxiety is just the cutest thing in the world to her. He swats it away.

“Did you talk to him anymore?”

“I kind of had to. Ethan really took a shine to him, I spent most of the night saving Patrick from some super one-sided conversations with him.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” This was the last show he was ever putting on for this guy. “I owe you.”

Alexis waves him off. “I didn’t mind. Your guy is good company.”

“He’s not my guy.”

“Not with that attitude he’s not.”

“Did you...did he say anything to you? About me?”

“You mean like did he tell me he came all this way to declare his undying love for you and that he wants to marry you and adopt a bunch of multi-ethnic children together?”

Her words cause his throat to tighten uncomfortably. “Well did he?” he ekes out.

“He did not.”

“Goddammit Alexis!”

She rolls her eyes at his little outburst. “Chill. We mainly just talked about our families, where we grew up, crap like that.”

“You talked about Mom and Dad?” He’s mainly surprised that she didn’t make herself the topic of conversation, though he doesn’t understand willingly talking about his parents for fun either.

“I told him about Mom’s wig collection and Dad’s obsession with Frank Sinatra. Figured I’d save the family therapy stuff for you.”

“Well then it’s a good thing I didn’t ask him to come all this way just to talk about Mom.”

“Good call. He’s waiting for you at the bar. No guarantees Ethan hasn’t gotten to him by now. Speaking of, I didn’t think he was into guys too?”

“He’s into anything with a pulse,” he tells her. “And honestly I can’t guarantee that would be a deal breaker.”

“Ew!”

“Ew indeed,” he says, motioning her down the hallway and away from the office. 

**

Patrick is mercifully by himself at the bar. He’s bent over his phone, fingers moving rapidly over the screen.

“Important conversation?” David asks, then kicks himself for it. He hates it when people ask him who he’s texting. Seventeen years into the millennium and people still don’t seem to get why it’s such a violation of the social contract, like asking someone why they didn’t like your latest Instagram post, or trying to sell essential oils at your kid’s PTA meeting. But seeing Patrick is still doing weird things to his brain, and his conversational skills are being hit the hardest.

“Uh, no,” Patrick says, shoving his phone in his pocket. “Candy Crush.”

David knows he’s lying, but he also knows it’s none of his business why.

“Okay, well - I am officially free for the night.”

“Oh yeah? Sold some chub shrubs?” He looks distinctly pleased with his own joke.

“Very funny. Did it take you all night to come up with that one?”

“Alexis and I had a lot of time to kill.”

“Hardwood,” she offers.

“Weeping pillow.”

“The mighty poke.”

“Hawthorny.”

“Suck-amore.”

David flaps his hands in the air to get them to shut up. “Okay, that’s enough! Fuck you both!”

They both descend into giggles, and he taps his foot impatiently until they regain their composure.

“Sorry,” Alexis says, in a tone that implies zero actual remorse.

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees. “That was super immature of us.”

Alexis’s phone chimes and she grins wickedly when she checks the screen. “That’s my ride, I’m out.”

She pulls on her coat and reapplies her lipstick with an expert swipe. She glances at her reflection in the mirror behind the bar and smirks. Modesty has never been her forte. 

“Alright David, thank you for...whatever this was.” She gestures vaguely at the unsold pieces around the room. “And Patrick, it was _lovely_ to meet you.” She swoops down and gives him a peck on the cheek, leaving behind a tangerine colored smudge that she quickly dabs away. 

“It was good to meet you too,” Patrick replies, and David breathes a small sigh of relief when he realizes they both sound like they really mean it.

She bows out in a flurry of gold sequins. If it weren’t for the catering crew clearing up around them, they’d actually be alone. 

“Hot date?” Patrick asks, cocking his thumb at the closing door.

“Don’t know,” David admits. “I try not to ask too many questions when it comes to my sister’s romantic life.”

“So I take it you’re not really the overprotective big brother type?”

“Alexis has always been pretty good at looking after herself. I just get called in for air support on occasion.”

“You know, she was actually telling me this story about winning a game of Russian Roulette to get across the border into Laos. I would’ve missed the reference if I hadn’t seen The Deer Hunter.” He laughs at the apparent absurdity of the story, and David briefly wishes he were an only-child.

“Yeah, no, that wasn’t a movie reference. That was Spring Break 2010.”

Patrick’s smile falters. “Wait, what?”

“Told you my sister can look after herself. You hungry?”

“Am I - uh…” Patrick shakes his head at the sudden change in topic. “No, I’m good. I filled up on the spread here. You guys over-ordered on the crab cakes by the way.”

“Ethan insisted,” David sighs. “He originally wanted the waitstaff to be nude - you know, kind of an Eyes Wide Shut thing - so I had to pick my battles.”

“Good call.”

David thinks that the choice wasn’t nearly as hard as the one he has to make now. He’d been banking on Patrick wanting to grab a bite to eat after the show as a way to ease into the conversation they needed to have. Inviting him back to the apartment is way too forward.

“Umm, so do you maybe want to grab a drink instead?” He knew of a speakeasy not far from the gallery where you could actually hear yourself think, on top of making a pretty decent whiskey sour.

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees half-heartedly. “Or maybe we could just have a drink back at your place?”

Did it count as being forward if Patrick is the one who suggested it? Probably not. Unless it was a trap? Oh for God’s sake, this is Patrick he’s talking to, not a Real Housewife.

“Uh, yes. Definitely. That is - uh, that is a thing that we can do.”

Maybe he can use the cab ride over there to remember how to talk like a normal human being.

**

“Woah.” Patrick stops dead in his tracks halfway through the front door.

“I know,” David says in a clipped tone.

“Like...woah.” 

It’s the decor. He’d had no hand in it. Despite his extremely vocal protests, his mother had put her foot down, claiming she’d had a vision for this place. Supposedly it had come to her in a dream, and nothing he said would dissuade her from it.

Which was how their living room had ended up looking not unlike a circus tent.

“Straight back for the kitchen. It’s a lot easier on the eyes, I swear.”

Patrick is barely paying attention to him, instead choosing to take his time and gawk at the bolts of silk fabric his mother had hung from the chandelier out to the corners of the room.

“Safe to say you weren’t in charge of decorating this place?”

“Very funny,” David says like it's anything but. “No, you’re looking at interior design courtesy of Moira Rose and the Wringling Brothers.” He nudges him back towards the kitchen.

The kitchen is tiny but, as David promised, not nearly as distracting to look at. Moira had left it mostly untouched during the renovation, save for a bright teal paint job on the cabinets.

“Okay, much better. What do you want to drink?”

“Just water is fine.” Patrick props himself up on the edge of the counter, his face a placid mask.

It’s not the request he was expecting. He remembered Patrick turning down the offerings at his apartment in New York that first night they’d spent together. Whatever conversation they're about to have, Patrick intends to have it sober. 

“Ummm...sure.” David pours him a glass from the dispenser in the fridge door and places it next to him, then situates himself on the opposite counter, the kitchen table standing between them. “So how was your drive down? Traffic wasn’t too bad?”

“What am I doing here David?”

Okay, so they were just going to do this then. No preamble. 

“I, uh...I don’t know if I can answer that for you.”

Patrick shakes his head. “No, I know why I came here, and it wasn’t to talk about traffic. I’m asking why _you_ wanted me here.” 

It’s the steadiness of his voice that throws David. It tells him that Patrick didn’t come here because he needs anything from him. Want, maybe, but not need. 

“I, uh...I asked you to come because...because I owe you an apology.”

Patrick looks at him evenly, and David knows he’s going to need to be a lot more specific than that. 

“Apologies, actually,” he adds. 

Patrick pushes away from the counter and draws himself a chair from the kitchen table. “I’m listening.”

“Ummm...right.” He really should have written something down for this part. He doesn’t remember the last time he offered a sincere apology for anything worse than accidentally handing his barista an empty gift card that he’d forgotten to throw out.

He remembers what Alexis told him about doing something scary. If it doesn’t kill you, then it’s usually not so scary the next time around. He really hopes she’s right.

“I fucked up,” he says, his voice too loud for the small space of the kitchen. “When I asked you to leave, that night. That…I fucked that whole thing up.”

Breathe.

Breathe again.

Okay. 

Definitely still alive.

“You didn’t ask,” Patrick says quietly.

“What?”

“You didn’t ask me to leave. You _told_ me to leave. You dressed it up like a suggestion. ‘Easier’ was the word you kept using, if I remember correctly.” 

Huh. So this is what crow tastes like. 

“Yeah, that’s...you’re not wrong.”

“I know I’m not,” Patrick says, and David wishes like hell that he sounded angrier right now. It’s Alexis all over again - disappointed, but not surprised. A reminder that he doesn’t often rise to meet someone’s expectations - he falls. “I remember it because it meant that there was pretty much no way that I could have asked to stay that wouldn’t have made me sound desperate.”

And here David had almost tricked himself into believing that no matter how much it might have hurt, at least he’d ripped the band aid off clean. 

“I know you have, like, _zero_ reason to believe me, let alone forgive me, but I really was trying...trying to - ”

“David if you say you were trying to make things easier for me, I swear to God...” It’s the closest he’s ever heard Patrick come to anger so far, but he doesn’t actually understand what David was trying to say.

“No,” David says. “Not for you. For me.”

Patrick’s eyes narrow at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that kicking you out like that - because fuck it, that’s what I did so we may as well call it what it was - I did that for me.”

“But why?”

“Umm...because I’m a selfish prick?”

“No,” Patrick snaps. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Be all self-deprecating so you don’t have to say something sincere.” The words burn with truth in a way that leaves David feeling naked. “Why was that easier for you? Easier than what?”

Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck._

_Pretend like it’s not going to kill you._

“Easier than just admitting how I really felt.”

Patrick crosses his arms like he’s preparing to take a blow. David knows the question that’s coming before he can even ask, but he waits for it anyway.

“And how did you feel?”

There’s a pain in his stomach. 

He should be focusing on the moment, on Patrick’s question.

But this goddamn pain.

It’s been there since the moment he saw Patrick at the gallery. It’s not the usual knot, twisting with nerves and emotions like he’s used to. It’s a dull, relentless ache - a malignant throb that tells him that, no matter what Alexis says, he doesn’t actually deserve good things. It is every selfish act he has ever committed, every person he has hurt, every person who has hurt him. It is the life he’s built for himself, the walls he’s erected between himself and the rest of the world. It’s every offer of friendship he’s dismissed, every romantic gesture he’s ever rolled his eyes at, every potential glimmer of happiness that he’s diminished because he didn’t believe he was worthy of it. 

The pain wears Patrick’s face, speaks in his voice. It tells David that the damage is done, too little, too late. It doesn’t matter that the real Patrick is sitting right in front of him, asking him plainly how he feels, and caring very much about the answer. The pain is clever like that, making him doubt the things he can see with his very own eyes. It asks him if he really expected to be forgiven? If he thought he could admit just how selfish, how stupid he’s been, and get a clean slate?

“David,” Patrick - the real Patrick - says. “David, please say something.” 

David opens his mouth, but the pain in his stomach has crawled up into his throat and is holding his voice hostage.

“Do you need me to say it first?” Patrick asks, rising from his chair and crossing the kitchen to where David is braced against the counter. “Fine - I liked you. A lot. Not as fling, or fuck buddy, or whatever. I liked you more than any of that. More than I’ve ever liked anyone.”

His voice, the real Patrick’s voice, is so much clearer than the one that’s been whispering inside him. The pain in his stomach recoils from it and now when he opens his mouth he finds his voice is his own once more. 

“I liked you too,” he says thickly. “So much.”

Patrick’s shoulders slump, and his expression softens. “Then why? Why’d you tell me to go?”

“Because I couldn’t ask you to stay.”

Patrick takes a step back, confusion clouding his eyes. “But I didn’t ask you to. I didn’t ask you for _anything_. No extra day, no relationship, no 'let's keep in touch'. God David, I spent so much of that day trying not to say any of that stuff, no matter how much I wanted to.”

“You wanted to?” David asks, stunned.

“Of course I did. Any of it, all of it, I didn’t care. I just liked you. I wanted to keep you in my life. But I didn’t want to freak you out, so I kept it to myself. And for what? You still - "

“I know,” David says. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to grab hold of a single coherent thought, but his mind is churning too fast in the wake of Patrick’s words.

_He wants you._

_He doesn’t know what he wants._

_Why not?_

_Because he doesn’t actually know me._

_Not if you don’t let him._

“You shouldn’t...you shouldn’t want those things. Not from me.”

“Why not?” Patrick demands.

“Because I’m not good at this.” He gestures between them, a gesture that could mean anything, but words just aren’t translating from his brain to his mouth the way he wants them to.

“At what? Relationships?”

“At all of it! Being there for people, letting people be there for me. I try but...I don’t know.” He throws his hands up, then allows them to drop dully at his sides. “Too many cracks in my foundation.”

Patrick shakes his head sternly. “I don’t believe that.”

Of course he doesn’t. People like Patrick have an annoying amount of faith that everyone else is as inherently good as they are.

“That’s very sweet of you. Naive, but sweet.”

“No it’s not! I know you, okay? I felt more like myself after three days with you than I've ever felt with anyone in my entire life. How can you say you’re not good at being there for people when I've seen you do it?”

Patrick doesn’t realize how many answers that question has. He could fill books - pages and pages of fears and inadequacies. So in lieu of an actual novel, he just picks the simplest one. “Because I’m not...I’m not a nice person.”

He expects a lot of responses to that admission. Disagreement, emotional pleas, comforting words.

The only one he doesn’t expect is the one he gets.

“No shit.”

That’s it. The thing you say to someone when they’ve stated the obvious. Like David had just pointed out the time, or the weather.

“When did I ever accuse you of being nice?” Patrick demands. “You’re sarcastic, you’re dismissive, you have absolutely no filter.”

“Okay, that’s - ”

“Wasn’t done,” Patrick says, holding up a hand. “You’re overly opinionated about food, under opinionated about global affairs, and you care entirely too much about what people think of you even though you pretend like you don’t.”

“Then how can you- ”

“Because I didn’t need you to be nice David,” Patrick says, cutting off his question. The speed and fervor he’d built up with his speech is draining from him, and when he speaks again his voice is quiet, and not unkind. “I needed you to see me.”

David can feel hot tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He tries to blink them away but only succeeds in making his vision go blurry. Even when he drops his head he can still feel Patrick looking at him. 

Why is this so hard? If he sees Patrick the way Patrick thinks he does, then why is it so hard to be seen in return? 

He’s not asking David for anything other than himself, exactly as he is. Mouthy and bitchy and no one’s definition of nice, but apparently he's decided that those are features, not bugs. So why is it so much easier to find reasons to tell him no than it is to take him at his word and trust that he really wants whatever it is that David has to offer? How many times can he make the wrong choice before life stops giving him any choices at all?

“I’m an idiot,” he finally admits, making no attempt to hide the sniffle that comes after.

He’s still staring down at the floor, afraid to let himself look up.

“How are you an idiot?” Patrick asks gently.

“Honestly?”

Patrick shrugs amiably. “Sure, why not?”

“Because at some point I got so used to being hurt by other people that I just started doing it to myself.” He expects the words to hurt, as the truth so often does. Instead he finds the last remnants of the pain in his stomach dissolve entirely. “Got to be pretty stupid to do something like that.”

“Well then in that case we’re both idiots.”

David finally looks up and is surprised to find Patrick standing so close to him, arms still crossed, his expression soft. His eyes - he forgot the specks of hazel in them that he could only see from up close. How could he forget something like that?

He wipes at his face with the back of his hand and it comes away wet. “What are you talking about?”

Patrick bites his lip, and his eyes have a distant look in them. He’s standing in front of David, but he’s a million miles away. “I was so sure,” he pauses, shakes his head at a thought only known to him. “ _So sure_ you would turn me down if I told you how much I liked you, or how much I wanted to stay, that I just kept it to myself. I decided you rejected me way before you ever even got the chance. How’s that for stupid?”

David stares at him, dumbfounded. What a pair they make. Two idiots, each convinced they were doing the other one a favor, and only managing to hurt themselves in the process. This is why he prefers rom-coms, where the biggest hurdle the main couple faces is that they’re both too British to admit they’re feelings for one another. 

“So what does it all mean?”

“Don’t know,” Patrick admits. “Just that we’re in the same boat I guess.”

“And if that boat happens to be the Titanic?”

Patrick throws his head back and laughs. “Depends. Which one of us is Kate and which is Leo?”

“You’d be Leo. No question. But I don’t think I deserve to be Kate Winslet after how I acted.”

“Who then?”

David pauses to give it some real thought. “Kathy Bates?”

The suggestion sets Patrick off laughing again and God did David miss that sound.

He lets him catch his breath before asking, “So which apology would you like next?”

Patrick looks taken aback by the question. “Is there a list?”

“I’m a masochist who had three months to think about this - of course there’s a list.”

Patrick nods hesitantly. “Well, I think I’m good with just the one.”

It’s definitely not the answer he was expecting. Not that he’s complaining, but after getting through the first apology he was actually kind of curious to see if he could get the other ones out with less crying. 

“Alright,” he says with a shrug. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

“I actually have something I want to ask you instead.” He takes a small step forward, not that there’s a ton of space between them for him to use. “Just one thing, no list.” 

David slides his hands into his pockets to keep them from reaching out and wrapping around Patrick’s waist. “Okay.”

“All night, you, uh...you've been using the past tense.”

If David is supposed to know what he’s talking about, he’s lost. “Sorry?”

“You said you liked me. You wanted me. You missed me. Past tense.” 

“I - oh. Umm...yeah, I guess I have.”

“So my question is,” he takes another small step forward, as close as he can get without literally stepping on David’s shoes, “are any of those things still true? You know, in the present tense?”

He’s close enough that David can smell his soap. Irish Spring, just like he’d guessed all the way back when they were stuck in the elevator. David looks down as being the focus of Patrick’s gaze overwhelms him, but that was a mistake because now he’s staring down at his collar bone and how can he be expected to answer any kind of question when all he can think about is what he wants to do to that stretch of skin?

He’s not sure of how long it’s been since Patrick asked his question. Either fifteen seconds or fifteen years depending on your perspective, but long enough that he knows he needs to say something soon. He finally allows himself to look up, and his eyes can’t seem to decide between settling on Patrick’s eyes or his lips. 

_Oh fuck it_ , he thinks. _It won’t kill me._

“Do you really have to ask?”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *falsetto voice* reunited and it feels so good


	20. Once more, with feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna be real with you all: this is pretty much 7500 words of straight smut. With maybe, like, 5% plot. Partly because i figured it was time these two really got back together and partly because this was all I felt like writing this week.

Patrick thinks that if he has to wait for David to kiss him, they’re going to be stuck standing in this kitchen all night. He understands the source of the hesitation - an abundance of caution mixed with the fear of rejection - and he wants to be sensitive to those things, he really does. The problem is that his body has spent the past three months craving David’s. Regardless of whatever mental gymnastics he performed to pretend that wasn’t the case, no matter how many Tinder dates he went on in hopes of finding a distraction, the craving has remained a constant. And while he's not proud just how much he's thinking with his dick right now, everyone has their limits. 

The fact that he hadn’t grabbed David by his jacket and dragged him into a coat closet at the gallery was a real testament to his self-control. It was also owed to a promise he’d made himself almost immediately after accepting David's invitee - that he wouldn’t let himself just fall back into bed with David without having an honest conversation about how they’d left things in New York. 

There was a small but very vocal part of Patrick’s brain that was suspicious of David’s invite from the start. It assumed, rather cynically, that this whole thing was a glorified booty call. It suspected that maybe David really was blissfully unaware of how much his dismissal of Patrick had hurt him and that perhaps, in his mind at least, there were no hard feelings, or feelings of any kind, left on the table.

_He wouldn’t do that,_ he argued back at himself.

_You mean the same way he wouldn't kick you out of his apartment without warning?_

It was, Patrick had to admit, an infuriatingly good point. Fool me once, etc.

So he’d made a deal with himself: there would be no falling into anything - David’s bed, his arms, a coat closet - unless David offered him a damn good explanation as to why he’d sent Patrick away that night. He didn’t have to like the answer, he didn’t even have to understand it perfectly, but he had to believe that it was sincere, unofficial Rose family motto be damned.

To ensure that he’d follow through on his promise, he’d confided it in Stevie, and asked that she help hold him to it. He trusted that if anyone could hold him accountable in the face of overwhelming emotions and excessive horniness, it would be her. Surprisingly, she’d been hesitant to accept.

“I don’t know man,” she'd sighed. “This sounds like a job for someone way more emotionally equipped than me.”

“Well, the fact that you’re not is sort of the whole point."

She’d narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I don’t think that was a compliment.”

“Okay, no, that didn't come out right,” Patrick backtracked. “It's just...you said so yourself that you and David are cut from the same cloth, right? ‘Emotionally stunted’, I believe was the term you used.”

She'd chucked a hand towel she was in the middle of folding at him. “Oh shut up, I know what I said. What do you want from me?”

“Practically nothing, I swear. Just text me throughout the night to remind me not to do something stupid.”

“Like what, immediately swallowing his dick?”

Patrick had cringed, but he also hadn’t denied the possibility of that scenario either. “Amongst other things, but sure.”

“Fine,” Stevie agreed, albeit begrudgingly. “I will cockblock you from yourself, but you owe me. Like on top of the dead grandma stuff. This is a whole new tier of owing me."

He didn’t know what kind of favor he could offer that would ever make them even for something like that, but they shook on it anyway.

True to her word, Stevie had texted him every thirty minutes or so to remind him not to jump David's bones, no matter how good those bones might have looked in a suit. It had actually been one of her texts that he’d had to lie to David about after the show. He’d texted her as soon as David had disappeared to the back office to write up the receipts for the night.

**Patrick: what do i do if he wants to go back to his place?**

**Stevie: you go**

**Patrick: thats the opposite of what youre supposed to say. youre supposed to tell me to say no and go somewhere public instead**

**Stevie: fine**

**Stevie: do that then**

**Stevie: but do you really want to have this talk in public?**

**Patrick: ...no**

**Patrick: ideal location wouldn’t be public but it also wouldn’t have a bed nearby either**

**Patrick: kinda limits my options**

**Stevie: then suck it up and go back to his place**

**Stevie: just don’t suck anything else**

**Patrick: youre not very good at this**

**Stevie: and youre a grown ass man who shouldnt need me to stop you from sleeping with someone. so do what you wanna do okay?**

**Stevie: just make sure you can live with it in the morning**

He’d started to wonder whether being told he was overthinking things by someone who procures sex with a question mark was a good or bad sign, but then David appeared and he’d had to make a judgment call. Or rather, a call on whether or not he trusted his own judgment. 

He’d thought back to the moment he’d left David’s apartment, to the rain soaked journey back to his hotel, to the sleepless flight from New York to Toronto. All the while blaming himself; asking himself what he’d done to deserve it, what he'd done to make David shut down like that. And of course he'd thought of Stevie’s explanation about the kind of person David is, and the likelihood that he’d sent Patrick away not because he didn’t like him, but because he liked him too much. It had made him feel better, but it didn’t erase everything else. 

He remembered that hurt, that embarrassment; he bit down on it to keep it from slipping away.

And then he'd summoned up his courage, and suggested that they go back to David’s place.

**

David stares at him, his question hanging in the air.

_Do you really have to ask?_

Patrick wants to tell him that yes, given his rather unceremonious exit from David’s apartment and the three months of radio silence that followed, asking whether he still has feelings for him seems like a pretty fair question. But it’s also one he already knows the answer to, and Patrick isn’t interested in dragging this out any longer.

He steps forward, closing the last bit of space that separates the two of them, and tilts his head up. That last inch, small enough that Patrick can feel David’s breath against his lips, is left hanging between them. He cedes the choice of what to do with it to David.

David, to his credit, chooses to be brave.

His lips come down on Patrick’s with a bruising force, and his hands grab at his waist, digging through the thin fabric of his shirt. He walks Patrick back until he feels the edge of the kitchen table bump into his thighs. Without breaking the kiss, David slides his hands down, hooks them just below Patrick’s ass, and pulls him up onto the table. Patrick’s legs fall open, and he slots his body between them.

David overwhelms his senses. His tongue presses into Patrick’s mouth, and Patrick can still taste the faint trace of whiskey David had been drinking at the gallery, a mixture of sweet and spice. He can smell the aftershave David must have dabbed on his neck earlier that night. He can’t quite place the scent, but it faintly reminds him of his grandfather’s wood shop, and the smell of damp leaves on an autumn morning.

David’s hands are everywhere, and he particularly enjoys when one of them reaches up to run itself through his hair, which he’s allowed to grow out over the past couple of months. Patrick had debated cutting it before coming down for the show, but Stevie had voiced some oddly strong objections to the idea. Now he was glad that she did, because it means he gets to enjoy David’s fingers slipping through the soft waves of his hair and scraping down the nape of his neck.

Rather abruptly, David stops. He pulls away from Patrick, looking half drunk from the kiss, and rests his hands on Patrick’s knees.

“We don’t have to do this,” he says, his voice thick and a little breathless. “I didn’t...this wasn’t why I brought you back here.”

Patrick slides his hands on top of David’s. “I know that,” he says. “Coming back here was my idea, remember?”

“I know, I know, it’s just - ” he pauses and dips his head. Patrick thinks there’s a pretty heated internal debate going on in his head right now, with one side arguing strongly in favor of getting back to the kissing, and the other not wanting risk fucking up all the emotional honesty David had just achieved. 

“Hey,” Patrick says, and waits for David to look at him. “I wouldn't have driven all the way down if I didn’t want to see you. Wouldn’t have come back here if I didn’t want to talk to you." He gestures down to where their bodies are pressed together. "I wouldn’t have my legs wrapped around you if - ”

“You didn’t want to fuck me?” David offers.

“You really do have such a delicate way of phrasing things."

He sees David searching his face, presumably for some sign that Patrick is being anything less than completely honest with him. He chews at his lip nervously, and Patrick makes it a point not to flinch, “Okay,” David finally relents, apparently willing to take Patrick at his word. “So what do you want to do tonight?” 

“Hmm...are you taking requests?”

“I’m taking anything you’re willing to give me.”

Patrick thinks there’s a joke to be made there, but then he sees the look in David’s eyes and he realizes just how genuinely he means it. He really did bring Patrick here with no other intention than to apologize. Patrick forgiving him had probably been his best case scenario. Anything beyond that, anything they were about to do, was clearly not something David had even let himself consider a possibility.

It both melts Patrick’s heart and also makes him feel vaguely creepy for the running fantasies he’s been having about getting David out of his suit all night. Speaking of things he's been fantasizing about all night… 

“I really want to fuck your mouth.” He says it fast because if he’d paused then he probably would have talked himself out of it. There are competing factions in his body right now; one making the case for taking things slow, drawing out each and every sensation, and another that desperately wants to come and isn’t too picky about how it happens, so long as it’s David’s doing.

David, for his part, doesn’t even hesitate to sink to his knees in front of Patrick. Points for enthusiasm at least.

“Not here,” Patrick says with a laugh. He hauls David back up by his elbows and rewards his attempt with a kiss. “We’re not having sex in your parents’ kitchen.”

“Why? If I remember correctly you were once _strongly_ in favor of me fucking you there back at my place.”

Patrick does recall eyeing David’s kitchen table and trying to decide if it was load bearing. “It’s different,” he insists. “I don’t want to come anywhere your mother might feasibly end up eating a scone one day.”

“Okay, I don’t love the fact that you’re thinking about my mother at a time like this, but that's fair. My bedroom?”

“Only if you promise me she didn’t get to decorate that too.”

David pulls a face. “Like I would let her anywhere near it. And I'm serious, that’s the last time we’re talking about my mum for at least the next twelve to twenty-four hours.” He turns Patrick around and nudges him back down the hallway.

They stumble into a room that is unmistakably David’s. It’s got a minimalist feel to it, occupied by only a chest of drawers, a small writing desk, and a queen sized bed covered in a black and white geometric print bedspread. There’s a single painting decorating one of the walls - a large print of _The Great Wave of Kanagawa_. It’s obvious that David really doesn’t spend much time here, but still wanted to mark the space as his own. And most importantly, absolutely nothing in this room reminds Patrick of a circus tent.

David’s hand slips from behind him to wrap around Patrick's waist as his mouth finds its way to his neck. His teeth graze the sensitive skin there and a tremor goes through him that reverberates all the way down to his knees. Then David’s breath is hot against the back of his ear. 

“Remind me again what it is you wanted to do in here?”

Patrick lets out a choked little laugh. “Fuck you.”

“Something like that,” David says, “My memory is a little hazy.”

“ _David_.” It comes out as both a plea and a warning. As in, _please get your mouth on me and don’t make me ask you again_.

“You’re right. You definitely wanted to fuck some part of me. What was it again?” 

His hands are slowly untucking Patrick’s shirt from his pants, and the feel of his fingers reaching their goal and digging into his hips makes it hard for him to answer right away.

“Y-y-your mouth,” he finally gets out. “David, _please_.”

“Yup,” David agrees, popping the last ‘p’ right into Patrick’s ear. “That was it. Don’t know how I could have forgotten that.”

“I hate you,” Patrick huffs. 

David turns him around so they’re facing each other, and gently nudges him back against a closet door. “I’m not going to say that wasn’t a legitimate fear I may have had tonight - ” Patrick opens his mouth quickly to assure him he was just joking, but David holds a finger to stop him before continuing, “ - but that was before you mentioned that little tidbit about wanting me in your life.”

Patrick doesn’t know whether to kiss him or strangle him. He’s never met someone who manages to be so deeply insecure and wildly overconfident at the same time. “Maybe I was just burying the lede,” he replies, deadpan as he can manage.

David fingers work at his belt, and one of his hands grazes against where his erection is straining against his pants. A small gasp escapes his mouth before he can stop it.

David bends his head down to kiss him, and before their lips meet, he stops, holding back just long enough to say, “Your poker face isn’t that good.”

Patrick would laugh but David’s tongue is already in his mouth, dancing against his own. He doesn’t remember when David managed to make it past the belt but he must have succeeded at some point because his pants are now pooled around his ankles and he’d probably have a much easier time keeping track of that sort of thing if his bottom lip wasn’t trapped between David’s teeth. His boxers follow soon after and then David’s hand envelops him.

David’s mouth is sliding down to his neck and Patrick knows he doesn’t have much time before he’s down on his knees. He rallies his few remaining brain cells that aren’t entirely focused on David’s teeth or hands and redirects their attention to getting David undressed. They work fast enough to get his jacket off and his shirt unbuttoned, but then he’s sinking down and out of reach.

For as much as David clearly wants him, Patrick is taken aback by how softly, how gently, he takes his cock into his mouth. David's mouth slides down onto him, only an inch or so, then pulls back. He repeats the motion a few times, and Patrick doesn’t think he’s ever felt something so precise or delicate as David’s tongue sliding over the head of his cock. 

David starts to take more of him, drawing it out in a way that only makes Patrick want him more. He seems to be savoring the weight and length of Patrick's cock in his mouth. Patrick tries to remember if this is what it was like in New York, the only other time David had sucked him off. He definitely remembers it being the peak of all the sexual experiences in his life up until that point. It was bumped to a respectable second place the next day behind the shower and body milk combo, and ultimately third after their last night together, but these things are pretty easy to rank when you’ve only been with one sexual partner that you’re actually attracted to. He remembers David confidently telling him exactly what he wanted to do to him, and then following through on his words, with enthusiasm. 

But this is something else entirely. David takes his time with Patrick the way a sommelier does with a perfect sip of wine. He feels David’s tongue slip from under the head of his cock and up over his slit; as slow and gentle as the move is, it still threatens to buckle his knees. He leans back and lets the closet door take his weight. After what feels like a small eternity he feels his cock nudge against the back of David’s throat and, after assessing his faith in his legs’ ability to not give out on him entirely, he risks a glance down.

He finds David staring back at him through heavy lids with his lips stretched and dark around him. He can see a muscle in his jaw jump as he holds Patrick there, savoring him. His shirt is still on but unbuttoned, giving Patrick a rather fantastic view of his chest. Then he watches as David takes a deep breath through his nose and allows the last inch to slip down into his throat. 

A low moan escapes Patrick’s mouth, and it's drawn out even further when he slips almost completely from David’s mouth only to be swallowed back down in the next instant. David repeats the move again and again, maintaining that same languid pace, and it becomes clear that he intends to draw this out for as long as Patrick can bear it.

The question of how long he can bear it contains two variables: how long Patrick can stop himself from begging (not long at all he decides, having almost no dignity in that regard) and how long he can go before he starts thrusting into David’s mouth of his own accord. It’s the latter that finally forces his hand, as he doesn’t want to risk choking David without warning. _With_ warning, on the other hand…

He slips a hand through David’s hair and recalls the offer he’d once made to him in the shower.

_Use me._

He moves his hand to the back of David’s head and slowly closes it into a fist.

_Hold my head._

He looks down and sees David’s eyes widen for a moment.

_Fuck my mouth._

Patrick tightens his grip and shifts his hips forward, just an inch or so, but enough to throw David off his rhythm.

_Use me to get yourself off._

It finally clicks in David's eyes. Patrick can see them fill with understanding. He tugs his hand back until David takes the hint and releases him.

“You’ll tell me if it’s too much?” Patrick asks. “Pinch me or something?”

David grins wickedly and his lips shine in the low light of the room’s single bedside lamp. “You’re either overestimating yourself or underestimating me, but yes, I’ll let you know.”

Any other time and Patrick would have given him shit right back, but between David’s teasing and a distracting, almost painful, need to come, he decides to give him something else instead.

He refastens his grip on David’s hair and pulls until his grin disappears and his mouth falls open. He allows him to take the lead for the first few strokes, making sure he’s comfortable and then, when he goes to take him down his throat once more, Patrick pushes his hips forward and meets David's lips half way. David doesn’t even flinch.

They fall into a steady rhythm with Patrick drawing him in and matching him with each thrust, abandoning the unhurried pace that David had applied before. But soon even that isn’t enough, because watching David take him so well, so willingly, is doing all kinds of strange things to Patrick’s mind. It’s not just using David that’s getting him off, it’s knowing how much David enjoys being used by him that really does it.

He brings down his left hand, which has up until this point been clenched so hard at his side that he’s left little half moon impressions from his nails in his own palm, and plants it next to his right on David’s head. He tightens his grip just hard enough that David’s head ceases its movements, leaving Patrick in control.

He stares down at where David is waiting for him, lips wrapped tight around the head of his cock, cheeks hollowed, and he says, “Look at me.”

David’s eyes slide up to meet his, and when Patrick thrusts his hips forward and his cock slides down, meeting no resistance as it does, he watches those eyes roll back in his head. Patrick thinks to himself, only half-joking, that three months apart was almost worth it for this view.

He begins to move faster, plunging into David’s mouth with abandon. The room slips away, along with the rest of the apartment, the city of Toronto, and every moment they've spent apart since New Years. All of it’s gone, or at least placed on hold, because all that matters now, all that _exists_ , is David, and what he’s letting Patrick do to him.

The heat of his mouth, the slide of his tongue, the tightness of his throat - they’re all Patrick can feel now and all three of them work together to drive him closer to the edge. He notices David’s eyes watering and he eases back briefly, wondering if he’s pushed him too hard, despite his claims about Patrick underestimating his abilities. But then David lets out a moan around Patrick’s dick that he can feel reverberate down into his balls, and he resumes his pace with a new found ardor.

“Fuck... _fuck David_ ,” he moans through gritted teeth. He releases one of his hands and brings it down to stroke across David’s cheek. He wants to tell David how perfect he looks with a cock in his mouth, how good he is at this. He wants to tell him how much it scared him - the idea that he would never have this again, or at least never as good as David gave him. But these are all thoughts that require a certain amount of mental bandwidth that simply doesn’t exist this close to orgasm.

“I’m close David,” he chokes out. “Where? Tell me where.”

He realizes a second too late that asking questions from a man with his mouth so thoroughly occupied is probably pretty foolish of him. He waits for a pinch or a tap on his leg, some sign from David to slow down and allow him to answer, but it doesn’t come. Instead, David slides his hands up and grasps Patrick’s ass firmly, urging him on. Not that Patrick really needs any urging, but the hands are definitely a sign of encouragement.

David’s message is received at exactly the right time, as Patrick can feel himself slipping past the point of no return. His balls tighten, and a pool of molten heat deep within his abdomen threatens to overflow. David moans again, his throat opening and then tightening around the head of Patrick’s cock, and that’s all it takes in the end. The pool of heat boils over, flooding his entire body. Blood rushes to his head, pounding in his ears and blurring out his vision. His cock pulses down David’s throat, which constricts and relaxes repeatedly as David swallows everything that’s given to him.

Patrick lets his head fall back until it hits the closet door and closes his eyes, trying to savor the quieting aftershocks that roll up his spine. He feels himself slip out of David’s mouth and when he opens his eyes again he sees David rising from his knees with a sated smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He slips his hands around Patrick and drops a small kiss on one side of his neck, then the other, and finally one on his lips.

“I almost forgot how good you taste,” David breathes against his ear. “I missed it.”

In response Patrick wraps a hand around one of his lapels and pulls him for another kiss, one that is distinctly less chaste than the one David just gave him. He tastes himself on David’s tongue and while he can’t exactly claim the fondness for it that David does, knowing what he did to get it there sends a warm thrill through him. 

“Yeah?” Patrick says, pulling away. “What else did you miss?”

David smirks and nips at his bottom lip. “You want an itemized list?” he teases.

“You say that like you don’t have one ready,” Patrick replies, calling him on his bluff. “I’ll take it in lieu of all those apologies you had prepared.”

David huffs out a little laugh and moves to kiss him again, but Patrick pushes a hand against his chest and raises a brow - a challenge.

“Alright then,” David relents. He shakes his head like he can’t believe it’s come to this, but Patrick would much rather hear this list than the one of apologies. “Top five?”

Patrick shrugs. “We can start there.”

David’s hands move up and begin working their way through the buttons on Patrick’s shirt, which has somehow managed to stay on despite the rest of him being naked below the waist. Freed of the shirt, David buries his face in the crook of Patrick’s neck and inhales deeply. 

“Well number four and five are right here,” he mumbles into Patrick’s skin.

“My neck?”

“Mmm,” David hums. “And the way you smell.”

“I feel like you wouldn’t be so complimentary if you knew how little I’d spent on the body wash you’re smelling.”

“I don’t care where you got it from, I just like it when it’s on you.” 

Patrick distinctly remembers David having very strong opinions about the travel size bottle of Old Spice 3-in-1 that he’d packed for his trip, but he bites his tongue.

“Number three?”

In response, David reaches down, intertwines his fingers with Patrick’s, and squeezes them lightly.

“Hands,” he says with a grin.

“Seriously?”

“Yup. Big fan of these.” He gives them another squeeze.

“Can I ask why?”

“They have this wonderful habit of finding their way into my hair and knowing exactly where to pull.”

Patrick can’t help but laugh at the explanation, even though he knows David isn’t joking.

“What's so funny?” 

“It’s just,” Patrick pauses, amazed by the things his brain chooses to commit to memory. “When we first got stuck in the elevator and I was, uh…I was thinking about kissing you…"

"Go on," David prods. 

"I remember wondering if you’d let me touch your hair when I did.”

David takes a small step back and studies Patrick’s face carefully. “You thought about kissing me in the elevator? You mean during the countdown?”

“More like in the first five minutes.”

A smile breaks across David’s face and Patrick knows this will not be the last time he hears about this. He jabs David lightly in the stomach. “You’re stalling. Two more to go.”

David glances down and smirks. “Am I allowed to say your dick?”

“Why wouldn’t you be?’

“I had such a good streak of all these non-sexual body parts going,” David replies, sounding oddly proud of himself. “I wanted to make it to five, but after what you just did to me I can't _not_ mention your dick.”

Patrick isn’t sure he heard him right. “What _I_ did to _you_?”

“Mmhmm. All that, you know...initiative you just took.”

“Oh is that we’re calling it?” He pulls David in for another kiss before he can answer. He means it to be gentle and unhurried, but then David’s tongue makes his way into his mouth, and his body crowds Patrick’s against the closet door. He can feel the press of David’s cock on his thigh and remembers that David hasn't come yet.

“Number one,” he says, forcing himself to push David away so he can answer. “Tell me number one and then let me get you off.”

“Let you?”

He fixes David with a level stare. “ _David,_ ” he says, and it comes out like a warning. He reaches out a hand and brushes it against where David’s erection is straining against his pants. 

David’s eyes squeeze shut against the touch. He opens his mouth and Patrick half expects him to groan, but instead he says, “Fine. Number one?”

“Please and thank you,” Patrick replies, and starts working at David’s belt.

“Your smile.”

Patrick’s hand freezes. He looks up at David, and expects to see a wink and a smile there, something to let on that he’s teasing him. But David’s face betrays nothing but sincerity, and an unmistakable sliver of vulnerability.

“My smile?”

David nods, his eyes skating over Patrick’s lips. “I spend way too much time around people who think it’s their job to look fashionably apathetic.” Patrick immediately thinks of the people he’d seen at the gallery, and how utterly bored they’d all appeared to be, despite the fact that many of them clearly cared enough about Ethan's paintings to drop serious cash on them. He would never understand how someone could be willing to cut a check for a quarter of a million dollars for a piece of art and look at it with all the enthusiasm of someone looking at a stop sign. David lips brush against him softly, like he’s momentarily forgotten that Patrick still has his hand on his dick. “I like that you’re an easy smile.”

It suddenly strikes Patrick just how quiet it is in this little room. They’re high up enough that the sounds of the city don’t reach them. The window, which would usually feature a spectacular view of Lake Ontario during the daytime, now stares out onto darkness. For now, David’s bedroom might as well be the only place that exists in the entire universe. Just a desk, a dresser, a bed, and two men who love each other more than either one is willing to admit just yet.

Instead, Patrick wraps his arms around David’s waist, looks him in the eye, and asks, “So you’re saying I’m easy?”

“Well you did put out the night we met,” David replies, not missing a beat.

Patrick starts walking them back towards the bed, turning at last second so he can pull David down on top of him. He hooks two fingers in the belt loops of David’s pants and yanks down. David, in an impressive feat of multi-tasking, manages to shimmy them off the rest of the way without once having to pause the bruise he was building up on Patrick’s neck. He can feel David’s cock pressing against his own, skin against skin, and he grinds his hips upward as he feels David’s teeth bare down on him.

“Jesus Christ,” David mutters. He leans back on his knees and looks down at Patrick, his face flushed. “Not to rush you, but I think you mentioned something about getting me off?”

Patrick pushes himself up on his hands, leans forward, and captures David’s nipple in his mouth. He grazes it with his teeth, and releases him only when he hears the groan from David he was waiting for. “I want you to fuck me.” 

He wraps a hand around David’s neck to pull him back down, but David stops him. “Are you sure?” he asks, a little uncertain. “You’re going to be pretty sensitive down there.”

Patrick runs a hand along his jaw and cups his face. “David, I appreciate the concern, but if you don’t get in me soon, I’m going to fucking lose it.”

The demand earns an appreciative laugh from David, who raises his brows and shrugs, as if to say ‘ _have it your way_ ’. Patrick yanks him back down with a finality that says ‘ _I plan to_ ’.

David reaches over him to pull a bottle of lube and a condom from the nightstand and tosses them on the pillow next to Patrick.

“Were you ever in the Boy Scouts?” Patrick asks.

“No," David replies after giving the question some thought. "But I did make out with one in middle school who pretended not to know me the next day. Why do you ask?”

Patrick briefly wonders how he’s not more used to David’s flippancy by now, then pushes the thought aside. He grabs the bottles of lube and presses it back into David’s hand. “You’re just always so prepared.”

David ignores his joke, which is probably for the best. He bends down and recaptures Patrick’s lips, pushing him down into the pillow.

There’s a distant snap of the bottle opening and then he feels a familiar stretch as David slips a finger inside of him. He hitches his knees out to make more room. His cock lies half hard between them, and he doesn’t know if it’s because it never went down after he came or if the feeling of David moving inside of him has brought it back. It doesn’t matter. Coming again is the last thing on his mind - all he really wants is David. 

He wants the press of his body against his own, and the almost painful stretch of his cock as it pushes into him. He wants to hear him moan his name so he knows just how badly David wants him. He doesn’t know why it never felt this way to have all those guys on Tinder clearly interested in him. It was just never as satisfying as being desired by David. It probably has something to do with the fact that when David looks at him, he can see him putting together a list of all the things he wants to do to him, and all the things he wants to make him feel. To be the singular focus of David’s attention does things to his libido that no porn, no Tinder date, no male lead in the Marvel Cinematic Universe could ever replicate.

David curls his fingers at just the right angle, and Patrick can’t help the way his whole body tenses and his thighs clamp down on David’s wrists. He moves his fingers once more and a hard, shuddering moan is pulled from somewhere deep in Patrick’s chest.

“I told you you’d be sensitive.”

“Shut up,” Patrick demands breathlessly. “Shut up and keep doing that.”

But David, perhaps sensing Patrick’s limits better than he can, goes back to the slow but steady fingering he’d been delivering before. He flexes his fingers outward and Patrick feels himself stretching and opening for him. 

“Can’t fuck you if I put you into a coma first,” David points out, and wraps his lips around Patrick’s nipple. A moment later Patrick feels David’s teeth graze him at the same time he goes to add another finger. “One more?”

Patrick gasps and it comes out thin and reedy under the dueling sensations, but he manages to nod. He bears down on David’s hand and it would almost be too much if he didn’t know he had to take David’s cock in a minute.

_Had to._

Like he hadn’t told him exactly what he wanted, hadn’t begged him to fuck him.

Like he hasn’t been thinking about taking that cock almost every day for the past three months. 

Like he hasn’t slipped his own fingers inside himself when he’s in the shower and pretended it was David touching him, David whispering in his ear to touch himself, he _wants_ to see Patrick touch himself.

Memory, it turns out, is a powerful drug.

“Fuck I missed this.” He hadn’t planned on admitting that out loud, but it turns out that having a filter and having David inside of him are two mutually exclusive concepts.

David huffs out a small laugh. “You’re telling me you’ve been celibate for three months?” 

Patrick takes the tone of disbelief in his voice as a compliment. He knows it’s petty to get so much satisfaction from the idea that David assumed he’d spent their time apart just drowning in men, especially when he compares it to how he _actually_ spent that time, but it’s not like he’s applying for sainthood anytime soon. It takes him a second to respond because it’s hard to pull any focus away from what David’s fingers are doing to him.

“I don’t think you can jerk off as much as I have these past few weeks and - _oh my God_ \- and still call it celibacy.” David was really driving into him now, and Patrick was finally starting to understand his warning about trying this so quickly after he’d already come. He forces his eyes open and finds David’s own gaze is fixed at where his fingers are working him open. 

He reaches down and grabs hold of David’s wrist to slow his movements. “I’m ready.”

David slips his fingers out and Patrick bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from groaning at the loss. David slips on the condom, then takes the bottle of lube and adds a generous amount to the head of his cock, spreading it down with a few quick strokes. He asks him again, “You’re sure?”

Patrick nods, then has a thought. “You’re either overestimating yourself or you’re underestimating me.” He waits for the smile to appear on David’s face, accompanied by a roll of the eyes. “Now come here.”

He moves to turn himself over when strong hands, one still slick with lube, grab hold of his hips and push him down on his back. David presses himself between his legs.

“I want to see you.” He mouths the words against Patrick’s jaw, just below his ear, and Patrick can’t think of any good reason to argue with him. This position reminds him of one of his favorite things about David - his size. 

All his life, Patrick hated that he was always one of the smallest kids in his class, or on his baseball team. In his family, most of the Brewers seemed to share whatever genes his dad had inherited when it came to height. Even Terry had at least two inches on him. Patrick had gotten his father’s build, but scaled down to his mother’s height. It was one of the things he had genuinely enjoyed about being with Rachel. He liked how small she was and how big he felt by comparison. He was never proud of feeling this way, but nor could he help it.

Then he’d met David, and that insecurity evaporated. He loves that everything about David is just a little bigger than him. He loves that he has to stretch up a little when he wants to kiss him, and the way his head notches neatly into his neck when David wraps him in his arms. He loves how David’s hands can envelop his own, and the feeling of David maneuvering his body exactly where he wants it. He never knew that something could make him feel so safe and so turned on at the same time, but David’s body has that effect on him.

Patrick drags his hands down over David’s broad shoulders and relishes the sensation of his fingers trailing through his chest hair. He feels the head of David’s cock, warm and slick, brush against him. That small amount of contact alone is enough to light every nerve in his body on fire. But then David pushes forward - slowly, carefully - and Patrick has to refocus his attention. 

Deep breath in, slow breath out. 

Despite only having done this once before, it’s already easier than their first time. Back then he’d had to ask David to stop when he was barely halfway in, and there was a terrifying moment when he worried he wouldn’t be able to take all of him. But then he’d allowed himself the time to adjust and get his breathing under control - just a matter of patience, in the end. 

He doesn’t need David to stop this time. Patrick’s body opens for him, enveloping his cock like it’s been waiting for it. When David’s body finally brushes up against his, and he knows he’s taken him completely, he could almost cry from the feeling of it, the completeness. 

David is holding himself up with his hands astride Patrick’s head. He stares down at him, his face a shifting mask of concern, pleasure, and restraint. “Okay?” he asks, his voice tight.

Patrick nods and loops his hand around David’s neck. “Very,” he says, and pulls him down into a kiss. He thinks that he could do this all night - make out with David while his cock is buried in him. But then David shifts his hips, pulling out and sliding back in just a little, and his first and only thought is - _more_.

It’s the blowjob all over again - David is taking his time, rocking in and out of Patrick slowly. It’s enough to send a constant hum of pleasure through him while leaving him wanting more. He pulls out far enough that Patrick thinks he might slip out completely, only to sink back into him like a hot knife slicing through butter.

Patrick is able to tolerate the pace for only a few minutes, before his body demands he do something about it. He reaches down and takes hold of David’s ass. The next time he thrusts into him, he pulls down hard and rocks his own hips up to meet him. David looks down and raises one eyebrow. 

“It’s okay,” Patrick says. “I won’t break.”

David smirks and he looks like he’s about to offer some choice commentary on that claim, but the smirk disappears when Patrick drops his hips then arches them up again, harder this time. A moan falls from his open mouth, and Patrick pulls him into a kiss so he can swallow it.

David doesn't drive into him like a hammer bearing down on a nail. Instead he builds a fluid rhythm, rolling in and out of Patrick, creating an unceasing wave heat and pressure. He fucks him steady and deep, and every so often the motion brushes against something inside Patrick that sends a jolt of electricity through his spine. David was right about how sensitive he’d be. There’s an edge to this pleasure that borders on pain, but even the pain - the tension and the burn - feels good. He’s hard again, but he knows he won’t come, and he’s not even sure he’d want to right now. What he wants is to see David to unravel above him, to lose himself in Patrick the way Patrick lost himself in him. An equal exchange. 

What he wants - what he _really_ wants - is for David to stop fucking him like he’s still apologizing.

“Fuck - David - need more - need - ”

He wants to finish the thought but it’s a struggle, and it’s not being made any easier by the roiling current of David’s body against his own.

“What?” David pants, slowing down a notch. “What do you need?”

Patrick shakes his head; this is the exact opposite of what he was going for. He stares up at David and once more he forces himself to speak quickly lest his nerves get them best of him.

“I need you to fuck me like you mean it.”

The words seem to cut straight through David, sparking something inside of him. There’s a flurry of movement that ends with David pressing down on him, chest to chest, as his cock pistons into Patrick with singular purpose. One of David’s hands twines itself into Patrick’s where it lays on the pillow next to his head; the other pushes against the headboard for leverage. His breath comes out in harsh rasps against Patrick’s ear.

Patrick turns his face into David’s neck and bites down, wet and clumsy at his pulse. Words are flowing from David’s mouth in a stream of consciousness, though Patrick can only make out a few of them.

“ _-_ _god - tight - so much - can’t - missed it - make me - ”_

“Come for me David,” Patrick pleads. “Please, don’t - _Jesus Christ_ \- don’t stop till you come for me.” 

He doesn’t have to wait long for David to fulfill that request. His words push David closer to an edge he was already fast approaching. The hand that’s holding onto Patrick’s squeezes like it’s trying to crack bone, and he jackknifes into Patrick with unrestrained want as he chases down his orgasm.

When he finally does come, it’s with Patrick’s name on his lips.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also wanted to mention *no spoilers* I thought the finale was beautiful and reminded me of how much of a fucking gift this show is.


	21. Literally a pile of dicks

“David.”

“Mmmph.”

“David.” 

“MMMPH.”

“Come on, use your words.”

David pulls his face out of the goose down pillow and turns it in the direction of Patrick’s voice. “No,” he grumbles, which, technically speaking, is a word.

He feels the bed dip, followed by a set of fingers tapping across his chest. “Come on,” Patrick says. “You can’t stay in bed all day.”

In defiance of that frankly ludicrous claim, David grabs hold of the comforter and pulls it up to his chin. “Watch me.” 

There’s a long enough stretch of silence that David thinks Patrick might have actually given up, which would be profoundly unlike him. But then his voice comes again, overly sweet and singsongy. 

“I’ll make you pancakes.”

David cranks open one eyelid. “What kind of pancakes?”

Patrick grins, the question marking a small victory for him. “Whatever kind I can pull together with what you've got in your kitchen.”

At this David finally forces the other eye open as well. “You mean half a bottle of wine and an unopened jar of tartar sauce?” 

Patrick’s mouth opens and then quickly shuts; David can see him silently reassessing the situation in his mind. 

“You didn’t actually look in the kitchen yet, did you?”

“I’ll admit that offer may have been a little premature,” Patrick allows.

David, reluctantly accepting the fact that he’s not going to get to go back to bed either way, pulls himself upright against the headboard and rubs the sleep from his eyes. 

“Yeah, no one really keeps food here,” he explains through a poorly stifled yawn. “My parents sometimes use this place for parties, but they just have them catered. Honestly, the fact that I even found a condiment when I got here was kind of impressive.”

“And the wine?” Patrick asks, not looking all that impressed.

“Bought it myself.”

“Alright then.” It’s almost endearing to watch Patrick attempt to out think an empty kitchen. “I take it that means coffee is out of the question too?”

“Mmm, unlikely. Quick sidebar though - are you seriously telling me this is the kind of energy you bring to the table _before_ you’ve had coffee?”

Patrick considers the question, then lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “I guess really good sex followed by a solid eight hours has that affect on some people.”

David traces a hand up Patrick’s forearm and enjoys the sight of goosebumps popping up beneath his touch. “Just 'really good'?”

There’s a moment where he thinks Patrick is going to shut down his obvious attempt to fish for compliments, which, okay, fair enough. But then he’s swinging his legs astride David, his weight settling comfortably in his lap.

“Exceptional,” he indulges. “Fantastic. Mind blowing even.” He’s humoring David, and they both know it, but the sex really had been pretty exceptional, so who cares?

“So you’re saying if I fuck you again, you’ll go back to sleep?”

Patrick rolls his eyes but leans down to kiss him anyway. David turns his head away at the last second, causing the kiss to land firmly on his cheek instead.

“Ugh, not on the lips.”

Patrick pulls back, looking confused. “What is this, Pretty Woman?”

“Morning breath,” David explains. “People kissing immediately after waking up is a toxic lie that Hollywood has been peddling for years, and I, for one, will not stand for it." Truthfully he just finds it vaguely yucky but he thinks the Hollywood bit adds some weight to his argument. 

He expects Patrick to launch into a five point explanation of just how stupid that is, but instead he just shakes his head with a bemused little smile and slides off the bed. “Whatever you say Julia. Go brush your teeth so I can take you to breakfast.”

“So that’s a no to the sex then?” David asks, more than a little disappointed.

“You’ve got five minutes,” Patrick warns. “Or I’m coming back in here with a jar of tartar sauce.”

**

It takes three cups of coffee before David feels adequately human enough to carry on a conversation. Patrick has taken on the lion’s share of the talking up until this point, which David was more than happy to allow him to do. He’s currently filling him in on his misadventures in the world of online dating.

“So you’d really never heard the term before?” David asks, cutting into his last bite of waffles. Patrick had brought up the ‘power bottom’ debacle, and apparently David hadn’t responded with an adequate amount of outrage.

“I feel like you’re missing the point here.”

“No, no, I get it. It was pretty tactless of him to ask you like that.”

David doesn't actually think it was all that tactless, just poorly timed. His usual policy is to either ask during the initial text conversation, or wait until they’ve at least made out a little bit before broaching the subject. It helps that top versus bottom has never made a huge difference to him one way or the other, assuming anal is even on the table to begin with, but it doesn’t hurt to lay out some boundaries and expectations before anyone gets their pants off. Even so, trying to gage how enthusiastic someone is about getting fucked up the ass when one of you has a mouthful of potato skins is a little inelegant.

“But you _really_ didn’t know?” he can’t help but add.

Patrick sighs and drops a forkful of hash browns back down on his plate. “Why the hell would I know what a power bottom is? It’s not like they give you a manual on this stuff when you come out.”

A mock up of a book cover floats across David’s mind - _Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Gay Sex but Were Afraid to Ask_. He could probably make a small killing before Woody Allen finally lawyered up.

“No, but the internet exists,” he points out. “You should be glad you didn't have to discover your sexuality in the days of dial up.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it must have been a real hardship for you.”

“You have no idea. Sometimes the images took so long to load it would be, like, half an hour before I figured out if I was jerking off to a man or a woman.”

His joke catches Patrick off guard, causing him to snort orange juice across half the table. His last bite of eggs is soaked, but it was well worth it. 

Patrick grabs a handful of napkins to mop up the offending juice, waving off a rather annoyed looking waitress as he does. “I’m not saying you don’t have a point,” Patrick says, voice still rough from the ensuing coughing fit. “But I don’t think coming out in the age of the smartphone is all that much better. I tried Grindr - ”

“Oh honey no,” David interjects, clutching a hand to his non-existent pearls. He tells himself the term of endearment was a slip of the tongue, and he almost believes it.

“ - and deleted it almost immediately.”

David lets out a long, slow sigh of relief. "Okay, real talk, that was probably for the best. Grindr is great if you’re just looking to get your dick sucked, but that's about it." He pauses, hearing the judgment in his own voice and adds, "Which, you know, is fine. If that was what, uh...what you were looking for.” 

He wants to be all casual and sex positive about this, he really does. And honestly, if Patrick had sat down and immediately started regaling him with stories of the absolute carousel of dicks he’d been riding for the past three months, David would have been pretty proud of him. Hell, he probably would have asked to see pictures of his conquests. Partly to see if any of them were hotter than him, but mostly to appear supportive.

But somehow knowing that Patrick _hadn't_ hooked up with anyone during their time apart is doing some weird things to him, things he doesn't recognize, things he has no names for. His brain had started making assumptions based on that little tidbit of information, as it was wont to do, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about the conclusions it had reached. For instance:

**Theory 1:** Patrick hasn’t slept with anyone else as a sign of devotion to him, because he’s madly in love with him and wants to get married and adopt all those multi-ethnic children that Alexis mentioned the other night. 

**Problem:** Requires several massive leaps in logic, little to no communication, and not to mention a fair amount of wishful thinking thrown in to be true. 

**Theory 2:** David had rocked his world, sexually speaking, leaving Patrick with no hope for finding his equal in bed and dooming him to possess a lifelong itch that only David can scratch. 

**Problem:** See again - wishful thinking. 

**Theory 3:** Patrick was just as hung up on David as David was hung up on him, and he didn’t want to sleep with someone else, because that would basically be admitting he was moving on and he just wasn’t quite ready to do that yet

**Problem:** Very likely and thus very scary

It's a lot to process, especially given that he’d originally stumbled upon this revelation while he was technically _inside_ Patrick, a situation that, while fun, did not lend itself to emotional introspection. 

They like each other and they want to be in each other’s lives - he knows that much is true. They’d both admitted it last night (fully clothed and completely sober no less), which means that whatever they're going through, they're going through together. And that was good, great even. More than he’d dared hope for. But what comes next? After the confessions and the apologies and the sex - dear God, _the sex_ \- just what the hell comes next? 

And all this spiraling thanks to one little joke about Grindr. Sometimes he wonders how much better off he’d be if he didn’t hate therapy so much.

Patrick’s voice pulls him from his thoughts and back to the topic at hand. “I was not just looking to get my dick sucked, thank you very much. I was thinking more along the lines of dinner and a movie.”

“Neither of which preclude you getting your dick sucked,” David notes. 

“No,” Patrick admits sheepishly. “I’m just saying it wasn’t the primary objective. Speaking of which, what is with all these dudes’ obsessions with circumcised versus uncircumcised dicks?”

A middle aged woman in the booth behind them looks up with an expression of mild disgust on her face, and David flashes her a smile. 

“It’s like...a _thing_ for some people,” he says, turning his attention back to Patrick. “I don’t know why, but it is.”

He pauses for a moment to give it some thought when something occurs to him.

“You know, being a guy on Grindr is probably kind of what it’s like to be a woman on literally any dating app.”

"Having now been on the receiving end of a completely unsolicited dick pic, I think you might be right.” 

An inappropriate voice in the back of David's head tells him to ask if he's still got that dick pic on his phone, and he's starting to understand why Alexis had dubbed him a work-in-progress. He shoves the voice back into the hormonal little cave it crawled out of and clears his throat. 

“Speaking of dicks, whose do you have to suck to get the check around here?” He looks around for their waitress but she hasn’t made an appearance since the orange juice incident.

“You don’t,” Patrick says. “It’s already paid for.”

It takes a second for the words to click into place, and even when they do they don't explain the vaguely smug look on Patrick's face. “But, when - ”

“I gave her my card when you went to the bathroom. Figured it was the only way I was ever going to get to pay for a meal.” 

Logically David understands what he’s saying. Illogically he’s still reaching for his wallet and wondering what the chances are that their waitress could void Patrick’s card and run his own instead. 

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Patrick shrugs. “It was just breakfast.”

“Still…” David can’t help but feel a small pang of guilt at having made Patrick drive all the way down here only to end up covering breakfast as well. Truthfully him covering _anything_ makes David feel guilty, but especially now considering how much he’d made off Ethan’s shitty paintings last night.

“Look, not to ruin the whole ‘Prince and the Pauper’ thing we’ve established here, but it’s not like I’m living under a bridge and panhandling for a living. I can afford to treat you.” He must see the hesitation in David’s face because he then adds, “I _want_ to treat you. Okay?”

David considers putting up a fight, but really, what would be the point? And, more importantly, why does he even want to put up a fight? It probably has something to do with the fact that ‘treats’ in his previous relationships - nice meals, clothes, jewelry - tended to come with strings attached to them. Or worse, they were given in place of actual affection, or emotional labor. _Sure I forgot your birthday, but look at this Hermes coat I bought you_. Rinse and repeat until ultimately he was left painfully single with a closet full of bad memories.

But this is Patrick, and these are just waffles, and if he chooses to get hung up on this then he’s really not going to stand a chance when it comes to dealing with some much bigger questions. Questions about expectations and boundaries and international borders. Waffles are not the hill he wants to die on.

For now, an easier question. “What did you want to do today?”

Patrick freezes with only one arm in his jacket. Okay, maybe not such an easy question after all.

“I forgot to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“I can’t hang out today, I’ve got to head home.” He doesn’t sound thrilled at the prospect, which is a small comfort at least.

“Oh.” David can hear the disappointment in his voice. “No, you definitely didn’t mention that.”

“Shit, that is very much my bad. Stevie’s doing some renovations at the motel, I promised her I’d help weeks ago.” He helps David slip on his own coat, pressing a small kiss at the back of his neck as he does. It should probably take more than that to make David feel better, but it doesn’t.

“She couldn’t hire a handyman?” he asks.

“Are you saying I’m not handy?” Patrick asks with mock offense, and nudges David towards the exit. But then his face slips into a grin and David really wants to take him back to the apartment and fuck that grin right off of him. 

“We could always go back to my place and you could show me just how handy you are.” He circles his arms around Patrick’s neck and, ignoring the fact that they're standing in the middle of a parking lot, plants him with a rather indulgent kiss. It’s his attempt at a Hail Mary, if he actually knew what a Hail Mary was.

“Mmm, tempting,” Patrick says when they pull apart, but in a tone that David knows means it wasn’t quite tempting enough. “But I made Stevie a promise, and the list of favors I owe her is pretty substantial.”

“How annoyingly magnanimous of you.”

“You know that’s not actually an insult right?”

David has a witty retort, but it dies in his throat. He hadn’t planned on Patrick leaving so soon. He had - and granted this was kind of a new thing for him - imagined them talking today. He didn’t really have a solid plan for that yet, nor does he actually know what he wants to say, but talking had _definitely_ been on the menu. And yeah, maybe some more sex too, especially of the handy variety, but the talking bit seemed just as important. 

“What’s wrong?” Patrick asks, having noticed the rather abrupt end to their back and forth. 

“Nothing,” David brushes him off. “Just thought I’d have you for longer, that’s all.”

Patrick studies his face in a way that makes him want to squirm away, or at least change the subject. “And here I thought I was the one with the bad poker face.”

David sighs and leans back against Patrick’s car. He definitely hadn’t imagined any of the talking taking place in a parking lot, that’s for sure. 

“It’s just...shouldn’t we be having ‘the conversation’ or something?” He uses air quotes for emphasis, which Patrick raises an eyebrow at.

“Can you be a little more specific?”

“You know,” David insists. “The...relationship conversation.” He can feel every cell in his body cringe as he awaits Patrick’s reaction, which means every cell in his body is quickly confused when Patrick throws his head back and laughs. “What the fuck is so funny?”

“Nothing,” Patrick says, which would have sounded more convincing if he wasn’t still laughing when he said it. “It’s just, you said that like it was a code name for an assassination plot and not, you know, two guys talking about how they feel about long distance relationships.”

“Well how do you feel about them?” David asks, seizing the opportunity.

“David, we are so not having this talk in a diner parking lot. And to be honest I don't think we should be having it back at your place either.”

“Why?”

“Because you can barely say the word ‘relationship’ above a hushed whisper, which would be great if you wanted to work this out in the middle of a library, but other than that probably isn’t a great sign.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have used those air quotes after all.

“Honest question,” Patrick continues. “If I told you right now that I was ready for a serious, committed, long distance relationship, do you know what you would say?”

It’s a fair question, which is what makes it all the more infuriating that he can’t answer it. What little of this conversation he had pictured in his head up until now would have been awkward but well-intentioned affair, with periodic breaks for sex and food. Okay, fine, so he didn’t have any idea what he was actually going to say, but after the success of last night he’d felt vaguely confident that he could wing it. 

And then Patrick had to go and be all take charge and direct about it when anxious and obtuse are much more in David’s wheel house.

He probably could have continued to spiral for a good few minutes if Patrick didn’t start kissing him up against the car door. By the time David’s brain can tell his body to do something other than standing there like a statue, Patrick is already pulling away.

“David, I’m going to need you to look about sixty to seventy percent less freaked out than you do right now.”

Having no idea how to work the math on that one, David plants one hand on his hip and waves the other one with a dismissive flourish. “This is just how my face looks.”

Judging from the look Patrick gives him, that’s not remotely true. “I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Patrick says, leaning in conspiratorially. “I have no idea how to answer that question either.”

“You don’t?”

“Hell no,” he scoffs. “I didn’t even know what was going to happen last night, how the hell was I supposed to plan for today? I'm just saying, there are worse things than taking some time to actually think about this before we jump into anything."

Okay, so maybe David is catching a ride on the _I Don’t Know What the Fuck I’m Doing Express_ , but apparently he’s in good company.

“Look, the show runs for another couple weeks right?”

“‘Til the sixteenth, yeah.”

“Do you have to be there every night?”

If it were any other artist, David would say yes. But it’s Ethan, so fuck him. “No, not really. I have an assistant with me who’s not completely incompetent, she can handle next weekend.”

“Perfect. Then how about you come spend it with me?”

“With you? In Poop River?”

“You know that’s not what it’s called.”

“I stand by what I said.”

Patrick tilts his head to the sky, presumably to have a brief check in with God or whoever else might be up there to confirm that this is absolutely, positively, _definitely_ the man he wants to be with. He’s wearing an affectionate smile when he looks back down, so David assumes someone must have put in a good word for him.

“Next Saturday,” he says. “Come up and see me.”

“ _See_ you?” David repeats, raising a brow.

Patrick must get his meaning because he chuckles softly. “And talk with me and sleep with me and whatever else you want that word to imply.”

“Just checking. Still getting used to this whole ‘saying what we mean’ thing.”

“Yeah, me too,” Patrick agrees with a soft sigh. He reaches out to slip a hand into the pocket of David’s coat and uses it to pull him closer. “So you’ll come?”

David leans down and drops a lingering kiss on Patrick’s lips. He pulls away, remembering that Patrick is about to drive home. If he tries to start something now, he’s going to have to wait a week to finish it. “I’ll be there.”

Patrick’s face is consumed by his smile, and David wishes he could bottle that kind of happiness and carry it around with him everywhere. He could use it to get through the holidays, instead of his usual combination of wine and Xanax.

“I’ll let Stevie know you’re coming, make sure she sets aside a room for us.”

“We can’t stay at your place?”

“My place is a guest room with no lock and an overly personal landlord. You really want to roll those dice?” His tone implies that he really, _really_ doesn't.

“Motel it is. Do you need my credit card to make the reservation?”

Something about the question causes Patrick to start laughing, though David has no idea why. “What?”

“Nothing,” Patrick replies, still grinning. “It’s just not really the kind of place you need a reservation for.”

It’s an unsatisfying answer, but David can tell it’s the only one he’s going to get. “Saturday?”

“Mmhmm,” Patrick hums. “Which gives us both a week to think about what we want this to be.”

David nods and taps his index fingers playfully on Patrick’s chest. “Okay, but have you considered Plan B?”

“What’s Plan B?”

“We go back to my place and I suck your dick again.” 

Patrick reaches up and grabs hold of David’s fingers. “David?”

“Mmm?”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Mmhmm, that’s fair.” He watches with no small amount of wonder as Patrick takes his hands, presses them together, and brings them up to his lips. In that moment he realizes he doesn’t need a whole week to decide what he wants from Patrick - he wants a whole life. He just needs a week to figure out how to say that without freaking him out. “We’ll go with your plan.”

“Thank you David.” He presses one more kiss into his hands before releasing them. “But if it makes you feel any better, I think your plan definitely had its merits.”

**

Patrick drops David back at his apartment before heading home, a departure that finds itself delayed when a goodbye kiss quickly turns into a goodbye make out session. On the bright side, David gets to see what it’s like to say goodbye to Patrick without being filled with overwhelming amounts of guilt and regret; he finds it’s a marked improvement over the previous experience.

He runs upstairs for a long overdue shower and outfit change, then calls himself an Uber to take him back to the gallery. He’s in the middle of tracking an auction for a leather bomber from Helmut Lang’s Fall 2015 collection when the texts start coming from Alexis in rapid succession.

**Alexis: so how’d it go last night?**

**Alexis: you get lucky?**

**Alexis: and by lucky I mean laid**

**David: top of the fucking list of things I dont wanna talk about with my sister**

**Alexis: thats a yes**

**Alexis: good for you**

He assumes that’s the end of it and goes back to up his bid when a new message pops up.

**Alexis: so I’ll see you at mum and dads on friday?**

**David: why would you?**

**Alexis: passover**

**David: r u fucking kidding me?**

**David: you havent set foot inside a temple in ten years**

**Alexis: so? dad invited us, hes the only one who cares**

**David: barely. last time we did passover dinner it was sushi catered from Yasu**

**David: which one of the plagues involved sake bombs**

**David: or did i miss that day of hebrew school**

**Alexis: dont shoot the messenger. you havent seen them in forever, one dinner wont kill you**

He wants to respond back that even saying those words is tempting fate, and if he chokes on a forkful of pickled ginger then on her head be it, but he stops himself. She has a point, annoying though it may be, about how long it’s been since he’s seen his parents. And he _is_ already in Toronto. He lets out a frustrated groan, which his Uber driver politely ignores.

**David: fine.**

**Alexis: dont sound so excited. dinners at 7.**

**Alexis: and its italian food this year**

If the driver sees him rolling his eyes in the rearview mirror, he ignores that too. 

**

Upon entering the office to grab his bag he’s surprised to find Martin, the owner of the gallery, already there. He’s a short, thin man, with an olive complexion and a shocking head of thick black hair that’s starting to gray at the temples. Aside from those grays, he hardly seems to have aged since the day David met him. He still moves at the same languid place he always has, as though he might pause for a glass of wine and a quick siesta at any moment.

“Checking in to make sure I didn’t burn the place down last night?” David asks.

It’s not a great joke, but Martin humors him with a smile anyway. “Forgot my checkbook on my desk. You?”

“Bag.” He points to the over-sized leather folio in the corner; Martin hands it to him.

“Not that I was snooping, but I couldn’t help but notice the receipts from last night.” He motions to the neat pile of papers David had meant to take home with him last night. “You made a killing, especially when you consider the, uh...subject matter of the work.”

“That’s a very diplomatic way of saying the paintings suck.”

“They’re not so bad from a technical perspective, but the subject matter is - ”

“Literally a pile of dicks, I’m aware.” 

He and Martin started out on the scene at roughly the same time, and had always had similar sensibilities when it came to what kind of art they considered to be worthwhile. Then they'd both sold out those ideals at relatively the same time, before Martin and his wife finally packed it in for the great white north. Jess had family just outside Toronto that she wanted to be closer to, and they’d grown tired of life in the city.

“Besides, if we’re going to sell our souls,” Jess, Martin’s wife, had said, “we may as well sell them in a place with halfway decent healthcare.”

“Dicks sell,” Martin says, still with that air of over generous diplomacy. 

“Are you talking about the art or the artist?” David asks dryly.

“You know I _was_ kind of surprised when I’d heard you’d agreed to work with Ethan. Rumor has it he’s a bit of a pill.”

David shrugs. “If I had a problem dealing with other peoples’ ego then I wouldn’t have gone into this line of work.”

Martin taps his fingers on the desk in a manner that David would almost call nervous, if that was an emotion he’d ever actually witnessed from him. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” he says cryptically.

“I thought you were just here for your checkbook?”

“Yeah, I was going to leave you a note to call me, but here you are. Happy accident, I guess.”

David crosses his arms over his chest out of defensive habit. “Mmm, how happy?”

“Jess is pregnant,” Martin says. “Very pregnant, actually.”

“Oh, umm...congratulations?” The announcement catches him off guard. He can’t count the number of times he’d heard Jess rail against the patriarchal expectation for her to settle down and start a family the closer she got to thirty. Or the number of times he’d had to help Martin get her passed out form into the back of a cab after a night of drinking, dancing, and designer drugs. Whereas Martin had always been the laid back, ‘let life come to you’ type, Jess belonged more to the school of ‘live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse’.

“Thanks,” Martin says, either too happy at sharing his news to notice the hesitation in David’s voice, or simply choosing to ignore it. 

“So what exactly does ‘very pregnant’ mean? I thought it was, like, a binary thing? You either are or you aren’t. Wait - is she having twins?”

Martin laughs at David’s unease with all matters relating to pregnancy and, by extension, babies. “No, there’s just the one in there. And very pregnant means she’s due in two weeks.”

“Two weeks?! What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at home, in case she, you know...pops?”

“You know the kid doesn’t just fall out of her right? There tends to be some warning signs before the main event.”

David has never really given any thought to pregnancy or the miracle of life beyond making sure he wears a condom even when his partner is on birth control, because those aren’t odds he ever wants to play. 

He waves his hand with a casual air, dismissing Martin’s question. “Sure, of course. How’s Jess taking it?”

“Taking it?”

“I’m assuming the pregnancy has kind of curtailed some of her usual pastimes.”

Martin shrugs. “I don’t know. We’d been trying for a kid for almost two years before she got pregnant, and we’d both been sober for almost three years before that, so it’s really not too much of a change.”

That little revelation throws him almost as much as the pregnancy news did. He didn’t know Jess had gotten sober, let alone managing it three years before they even tried to have a kid. And Jesus Christ, is he really at the age where people _try_ to have kids? Most of his social circle is adamantly child-free, and those that aren’t all seem to be the victims of ‘happy accidents’ more than their own conscious decisions. But here’s a guy he once saw snort ecstasy off his own wife’s back due to the lack of any other available flat surface, and he’s saying that not only did they get pregnant on purpose, they actually worked at it for _two whole years_ before it finally happened. David can barely commit to a checkout line at Whole Foods for fear he’ll end up stuck behind a couponer.

“So was that all you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Kind of. We’re both going to be off for the next six months. Family leave,” he adds, seeing the confusion on David’s face.

“You get six months off just for having a kid?” It’s still not enough to make having children even remotely appealing to him, but it would definitely soften the blow.

“You do on this side of the border,” Martin explains. “And it’s not like it’s a vacation. More like a six month crash course in keeping a tiny human alive.”

“Fair point. So the gallery is just going to shut down until the fall?”

“Well that’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. We could shut it down, but summer is our busiest season. Foot traffic isn’t really a thing in the dead of winter.” David sympathizes - New York isn’t much better in that regard. People might kill a whole day at a museum like he and Patrick had at The Met, but small, privately owned galleries don't draw those kinds of crowds outside of major shows. “Or, you could run it for us.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Look, we’ve known you for years. We trust you. If you say no, that’s fine, but I’d rather take the keys home with me than hand them over to someone I barely know and cross my fingers that the place is still standing in six months.”

The offer leaves him momentarily speechless. His first thought, whether it should be or not, is that this would move him closer to Patrick, at least temporarily. This is followed by a cascade of much more logical concerns - like the fact that his home, his gallery, and all his earthly possessions are back in New York. The personal items he has at the apartment other than his bedroom furniture are whatever he happened to bring in his suitcase. Not that he wouldn’t be making a trip back to New York to bring more stuff up, but it serves as a reminder that Toronto hasn’t really been his home in a _very_ long time.

“I have my own gallery to run, you know that.”

“I do,” Martin says fairly. “But I also know that assistant of yours has been itching for a chance to put on her own shows for a while now. And you’ve kept her around longer than any of the others, so you must trust her, at least a bit.”

The assistant he’s referring to, Chelsea, is actually surprisingly competent, especially considering her age and relative lack of experience outside of David’s gallery. Plus she has a high opinion of herself and a very low tolerance for bullshit. In most industries this would leave her labeled as a cold bitch, but in the art world they called it attitude and meant it as a compliment. Like Martin had pointed out himself, he knows in his gut that he could leave the place in her care and still find it - and more importantly its reputation - intact six months down the line.

“That’s...a lot. To consider,” he adds.

Martin nods. “I know, it’s no small favor we’re asking of you. But we already have shows lined up for June and July. We just need someone to manage them, you wouldn’t even have to take submissions before then. And if not, we can re-schedule them for the fall. C’est la vie.”

David wants to say yes. After Patrick telling him to take some time to figure out what he wants their relationship to be not even two hours ago, this feels like the universe dropping a massive hint wrapped in a big red bow right in his lap. But something in him tells him to pause. That maybe taking a week to consider what he wants means he should _actually_ take a whole week. At the very least he should discuss it with Patrick before he goes and uproots himself. 

“Can I think about it?”

“Of course,” Martin replies. “Like I said, Jess isn’t due for another couple weeks. Doesn’t mean she couldn’t go into labor tomorrow, but for now I think you can safely assume we don’t need an answer right this second.”

“Thanks. And, look - this isn’t just me being too polite to say no. I really do need to give it some thought.”

“David, I’ve known you for, what, fifteen years? In all that time I don’t think I’ve ever seen you avoid saying no for the sake of politeness.” He doesn’t say it cruelly, but David’s not so sure it’s a compliment either.

Martin tucks his checkbook in his coat pocket and pats David on the shoulder as he moves for the door. David holds out a hand to stop him. “I don’t know how to ask this in a way that doesn’t sound at least a little bit offensive, but...didn’t you guys always say you never wanted to have kids?”

Martin pauses at the door and appears to give the question some thought. After a moment he says, “We used to not want to get married either. And then we never wanted to leave New York." He shrugs. "Things change.”

“You mean the things you wanted changed? Or you did?”

Martin offers him an easy smile and holds out his hands, palms up. “Both.”

  
  


**

  
  


David rings the doorbell of his parents’ Bridal Path estate (he almost knocks, but depending on what wing of the house they’re in there’s a more than decent chance they wouldn’t hear it), and finds himself face to face with a housekeeper he doesn’t recognize. It’s hardly a surprise - his mother goes through the help at roughly the same speed with which she goes through her credit card limit at Neiman Marcus. 

The only person who ever stuck around for any real significant amount of time had been Adelina. His mother had attempted to dismiss her once both he and Alexis were in school full time, only to face down two of the most spectacular hissy fits either of them had ever thrown. She managed to tolerate the tears and the screaming for all of two minutes before she realized that she’d dismissed the exact person she normally would have handed them off to until they calmed down. Adelina was hired back, with a substantial pay raise, the next morning.

David may not recognize the woman who answers the door, but apparently she knows who he is. “Your parents are in the drawing room Mr. David,” she says in a thick Slavic accent, not unlike his current doorman’s. “And your sister is in the kitchen. She wants that you should come see her first.”

She disappears with his coat and the bottle of wine he’d brought with him before he can ask if Alexis had said anything else. He makes a mental note to ask her if ‘Mr. David’ can not be a thing anymore before he leaves tonight.

In the kitchen he finds his sister plucking a piece of gnocchi directly from the pan on the stove, blowing on it gently, and popping it in her mouth.

“If only you were eating that in a room with utensils,” he says, pulling open a drawer and digging inside. “You know, a fork, a spoon, something like that.” 

She rolls her eyes as he shoves a fork into her hand. “You know I have to fill up before dinner. Mum gets super judgy when I eat too many carbs in front of her.”

“I’ll be sure to eat an entire roll of bread tonight in your honor.”

“Please, like you weren’t going to do that anyway.” She scoops up another piece of gnocchi with a generous coating of vodka sauce and shovels it in like it’s the last thing she’ll get to eat for days. 

“So how are they tonight?” David asks, ignoring her jab about the bread.

“Mum and Dad?”

“No, Dad and the new housekeeper,” he replies flatly.

“Olga,” Alexis corrects through a mouthful of pasta. “Mum fired Heidi last month. Something about the way she folded her underwear, I wasn’t really paying attention.”

David pushes by her to get to the fridge, hoping for some champagne but willing to settle for one of his mother’s wine coolers. “Sounds pretty on brand for her. I take it she’s fine then?”

“Fine-ish. She’s doing some telethon next month for the Alzheimer's Research Fund. Don’t mention it unless you want to get an earful about her getting shafted with the midnight shift while Clifton Sparks got the prime time slot.” She helps herself to the pan once more. “Oh, and she sent her wigs out for their bi-annual cleaning last week but hasn’t gotten any of them back yet, so she’s wearing this weird headscarf thing tonight.”

“Headscarf?”

“Yeah, it’s _very_ Grey Gardens, try not to stare.”

“Mmm, thanks for the warning.” David hits pay dirt in the form of a Pomegranate Raspberry Bartles and Jaymes. The first sip tastes like his junior year of high school. “And Dad?”

Alexis shrugs, wiping sauce from the corners of her mouth. “The usual.”

“So golf and professional advice that’s thirty years out of date?”

“Pretty much.”

“Great.” Sometimes he appreciates how predictable his parents can be. He hates the wild card nights that involve Moira having one of her ‘episodes’ or Johnny asking him if he’s given any thought to settling down with a nice woman (or man, he always adds dutifully). If he can keep his parents talking about themselves for the next hour, there’s a chance they’ll wrap up early enough for him to head up to see Patrick tonight. 

He’s been toying with the idea of surprising him all day, but he knows it’s going to depend entirely on the length of the dinner and how much alcohol he needs to get himself through it. 

“Where have you been by the way?” he asks, realizing this is the first time he’s seen her since the gallery opening.

Alexis glares at him like he just asked her if she’s had work done. Actually worse than if she’d had work done. “Around. Why?”

“Because we’ve been in the same city for more than a week, which happens once every like...four years, maybe? Just thought I’d see more of you.”

She crosses her arms defensively. If he knew this was the kind of reaction he was going to get then he never would have brought it up. “You know me,” she says cryptically. “A ship in every port.”

“Mmm,” David hums knowingly. “And what was this ship’s name?”

He fully expects her next words to be some variation of ‘fuck off’: fuck you, get fucked, go fuck yourself. After all these years, he’s gotten pretty good at reading her. Which is why it comes as a mild surprise when she answers, “Liam.”

“Liam,” he repeats, searching his memories for the name but coming up blank. “Do we know Liam? Do we _like_ Liam?” He knows she hates the royal ‘we’ as much as he does, though he's curious about the answers all the same.

“We did,” she replies, pointedly avoiding eye contact by staring intently at her shoes. “Not as much as his wife does, apparently.”

David lets out a low whistle. He’s been there and knows how very not fun it is. “You didn’t know?”

She shakes her head slowly. 

“And you really liked him?”

A nod.

“Well, this isn’t your first rodeo. You’re not exactly an expert when it comes to monogamy. No offense,” he adds. He doesn’t mean it as a criticism. It’s just...Alexis.

She lets out a dry little laugh. “Nope, definitely not.”

“So then why - ”

“I’ve never been the other woman before,” she says, cutting his question off. “I’ve cheated, and I’ve been cheated on, but I’ve never...you know. Wrecked a home.”

“How’d you find out?”

“Picked up his phone thinking it was mine. Caught the first half of a text asking if he remembered ‘where Sam left his retainer’.”

David cringes. "Not many reasons for a grown man to care about a kid’s retainer unless it’s his own kid.”

“Not so much,” she agrees. “The only part of this that was actually kind of funny was watching him try to think of some.”

He offers her the rest of his wine cooler - a poor token of sympathy, but his options are limited. She takes it with a small smile. 

“Enough about me and my shitty taste in men. I’d much rather hear about yours.”

“Mine is just as shitty, I promise you.”

“Not lately.” She drains the rest of the bottles and licks at her pink-stained lips. Shit, that means his are probably stained too.

“I’m going to see him this weekend. He wanted us to take a week to think about what we really want from this. From us,” he adds.

Alexis nods approvingly. “What a weirdly rational way to handle it.”

“I know, right? It’s kind of annoying.”

“So what exactly do you want from it?”

“A relationship.” He doesn’t even need to pause to think about it, which is probably a good sign. “Definitely a relationship.”

“Well no duh.”

“What do you mean, ‘duh’?”

“I mean I met him, remember? Five minutes with him and even I wanted a relationship from him.”

David, who’s never actually had to compete with Alexis for a man, finds the idea more amusing than anything. “Too bad he’s not buying what you’re selling.”

“No, but he’s definitely in the market for _you_.” She reaches out and taps a finger on the end of his nose. “So you’re going to give the long distance thing a shot?”

“That’s the big question. Though apparently it might not be as long of a distance as we’d thought.”

“What do you mean?”

He’s about to tell her everything, from Martin and his offer to what it could mean for him and Patrick, when Olga comes bustling into the kitchen in a flurry of movement. 

“Miss Alexis, Mr. David - your parents are waiting for you in the dining room,” she says, pulling serving trays out of the cabinet. “Go sit, I bring the food soon. That is, if Miss Alexis left you any gnocchi.”

David has to fake a small coughing fit to hide his laughter. He hopes his mom keeps Olga around for a while.

  
  


**

  
  


“So Alexis tells us you’re headed north to see someone tomorrow?”

He shoots his sister a glare for her lack of discretion; she mouths a silent ‘sorry’ from across the table. He’d had to run to the bathroom before they sat down for dinner, and apparently she’d use those five minutes to run her mouth.

“That’s the plan,” he admits.

“Is this person a...romantic - ”

“No,” David says, cutting him off. “He’s just a friend. All I am doing is visiting a friend.” 

He lies not because he’s ashamed of Patrick, or because he’s too embarrassed to admit that he’s about to drive all that way for the sake of a relationship talk that a normal person probably would have had months ago. It’s just that, historically speaking, the less his parents know about his love life, the better. They mean well, they do, but he learned at a young age that people who have been with their soulmate for almost forty years tend not to have the most useful advice when it comes to dealing with serial heartbreak.

Johnny holds his hands up in surrender and goes back to his food. “Friend it is then. And whereabouts does this friend live, if I’m allowed to ask?”

David bites back a groan at the question. There has to be a thousand towns in southeastern Ontario that Patrick could have moved to, and he had to go and pick the one that could never be brought up in polite conversation without requiring a pause for laughter followed by a lengthy explanation.

“A small town, about twenty minutes north of Bracebridge.” He pats himself on the back for having already checked the route on Google Maps earlier. 

His mother’s head perks up at the mention of the town. “Oh John, Bracebridge was that charming little hamlet we stayed in while I was shooting that PSA about overfishing for CBC, remember? They put us up in that positively winsome little bed and breakfast that served those blueberry scones you were so fond of.”

David, thinking of exactly how many fur coats his mother currently has hanging in her bedroom closet, excluding those she hasn’t placed in cold storage for the year at least, wonders whose bright idea it was to recruit his mother for an environmentalist campaign.

“I remember it well, they also did a lovely espresso,” Johnny says fondly. “Though I don’t recall there being much of anything north of there, not until you hit Elmdale. Your friend lives in Elmdale?”

Christ, could no one in this family leave anything alone?

“No, he’s south of Elmdale.”

All three members of his family stare at him pointedly, waiting for a more substantive answer.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, fine.” He slams his fork down, his appetite already gone. “He lives in Schitt’s Creek. There, are you satisfied?”

He shoves a piece of bread in his mouth, because his willingness to eat bread exists completely separate from his normal day to day appetite, and chews in fuming silence. He’s so caught up in said fuming that it takes him a full minute to realize his family is still staring at him. They still appear confused, though that confusion has taken on a different hue than before.

“What?” he asks, the word coming out muffled through a bite of focaccia.

It’s Alexis who answers him. “Did you say Patrick lives in Schitt’s Creek?”

“Yes, and before you even start - I realize how stupid it sounds, but I swear it’s a real place. Google it if you don’t believe me, but can we please talk about something else now?”

He doesn’t want this to turn into a conversation about the time one of his boyfriends in college had broken up with him with the excuse that his visa had expired and he had to return to his home country of Lilliput to have it renewed. David, having never read Gulliver’s Travels, was all the more confused when he ran into his ex at a speakeasy in Williamsburg not three weeks later. And while it certainly seems like Alexis has turned over a new leaf in terms of emotional maturity, he still doesn’t trust her to not dust off that old chestnut.

“No, that’s not why…” she trails off, shooting her dad an odd look. “You seriously don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember what?”

“David, you’ve been to Schitt’s Creek before.”

She says it like that little revelation should mean something to him, but he hardly sees the significance of having passed through the town his current boyfriend - _oh, is that the term we’re going with now?_ \- happens to live. It’s a coincidence at best, and not a particularly interesting one.

“So? What, did we drive through it on one of those road trips Dad dragged us on when we were little?”

“Those were meant to be family bonding experiences,” his father interjects. “Before you kids got spoiled with first class travel accommodations.”

“Uh-huh,” David replies scornfully. “Was this the time we were supposed to drive all the way to Vancouver and you ended up having the family jet pick us up in Winnipeg and take us the rest of the way there?”

“Your mother started getting car sick and didn’t want to take any more Dramamine,” Johnny claims, his voice rising defensively.

From what David can recall his mother had swapped the Dramamine for a Klonopin as soon as they got on the flight anyway and didn’t wake up until they got to the hotel in Vancouver, but he’s already too deeply over this conversation to bother bringing that up.

“We’re getting off track,” Alexis says. She looks to her dad again and raises her brows. “Will you just tell him already?”

Johnny sighs the way he always does when he feels particularly put-upon by his children, but he obliges her request anyway. “Schitt's Creek is the town I bought you when you were a kid.” 

David stares at him, wondering if maybe he’s having a stroke. It's the only thing would explain the utter lunacy of what he just said.

“I’m sorry, you what?

“I bought you the town. Had to be, what - twenty-five years ago now? It was for sale, so I bought it. Got it for a pretty good deal too.”

“You _bought_ a town?” The words don’t sound any less strange coming out of his own mouth than his father’s.

“Correct.”

“You bought a town?!”

“Of course I did!” Johnny looks around like he wants everyone else to confirm he’s not speaking in tongues. Alexis stares down at her plate to hide her giggles. Moira blissfully sips her wine. 

“What do you mean ‘of course’? Why on earth would you buy a town?”

“Because you liked the name, remember? You saw it on a sign and it made you laugh.”

“I don’t remember any of that!”

“Well I do. You were eight, and had pretty much decided that _nothing_ was funny anymore. Kind of made it stand out.”

“You’re telling me you bought a town because an eight year old thought that the name was funny?”

“Sure. You know, as a joke.”

“I thought the name was the joke.”

“That was part of it,” Johnny agrees. “But owning it was what really made it land.”

If it wasn’t for the pounding headache slowly coming to life behind his skull, David would swear he was dreaming. Part of him is still convinced he is. It’s too many coincidences to be real.

He just so happens to get stuck in an elevator on New Year’s Eve.

And in that elevator just so happens to be a very cute, very closeted guy, who just so happens to be very into David.

And this very cute, now not-so-closeted guy, just so happens to be from a small town in Ontario that David’s father just so happened to buy him when he was eight goddamn years old.

_Come the fuck on._

It reads like bad television, just one contrivance on top of another. He’s seen pornos with more believable plots, even those ones where some cute little twink takes on two guys built like Greek gods all while blushing and claiming it’s his first time.

“Wait, what does that even mean? How do you _own_ a town?”

“Well it’s certainly been awhile since I looked at the contract, but if I remember correctly it really only entitles you to any unclaimed land not already designated for public use within the town limits. Abandoned properties ceded to the government, unincorporated farmland, things like that.”

“So you’re saying I own some empty fields and a few decrepit old buildings? And you thought that made a good gift for a child?"

“I mean, the name was the real selling point. I wasn’t looking at what the town actually had to offer in terms of real estate.”

“Of course not, why would you?” David asks dryly.

“I don’t understand why you seem to find the ownership of this little township such an encumbrance to you,” Moira says. “Al and Tipper just bought themselves a small island in the Maldives and from what they’ve told us it sounds like they found the whole process quite enchanting.”

David feels like he's running the very real risk of pulling his hair out in frustration. “Okay, first off, I don’t really give a shit what Al and Tipper thought of it. And second, we’re not talking about me owning a tropical island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. We’re talking about me owning the Podunk little town where my boyfriend lives. Two totally different things.”

At this, Johnny perks up. “Boyfriend? I thought you said you were just visiting a friend.”

“Oh my God, that is so not the thing we should be focusing on right now.”

Johnny looks like he wants to disagree, but David shoots him a sour glare and he takes another sip of wine instead.

“The town is in my name?”

“I put it on the deed. I was the trustee until you turned eighteen, then the ownership transferred over to you.”

“And you didn’t think to mention this at all in the past, oh I don’t know, fifteen years or so?”

Johnny hands his empty plate to Olga, who swaps it for a slice of chocolate babka, the only vaguely traditional Jewish food to make an appearance at what is technically supposed to be a Passover dinner. “To be honest David, it slipped my mind. I held on to the contract, but it wasn’t like there was anything worth doing with it.”

“This just keeps getting better,” David mutters to himself. “You know what, I think I need to call it a night.”

“Oh no, stay!” his mother cries. “We haven’t even had our afters yet, or the post dinner digestif I had prepared in the lounge!”

“David, don’t upset your mother,” Johnny warns, albeit in an obligatory tone.

“I’m sorry,” he says, pushing back from the table. “The food was lovely and delightfully off-theme, as per usual, but I need to figure out how I’m supposed to tell my boyfriend that not only do I own the town he lives in and works for, but that I own it _ironically_.”

He hears a clatter of cutlery hitting a plate and turns to see Alexis rising from her chair. “Hold on, I’m coming with you.”

“Well now really, this is hardly worth these kinds of histrionics!” Moira calls after them, completely oblivious to the level of irony she’s just achieved.

“You didn’t need to do that you know,” David tells her when they reach his car. “I could have met you at the apartment later.”

“I’m not just coming with you to the apartment,” Alexis says to David’s puzzled expression. “I’m coming with you to Schitt’s Creek.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I take back everything I ever said about how hard it is to write good sex scenes. Writing good Moira scenes is so much harder.


	22. Pastries

Patrick hated lying to David. He’d hated it, but he’d done it anyway.

The irony of their last conversation being about saying what they really mean is certainly not lost on him. But at some point in the early hours of the morning, long after David had fallen asleep but before the first hint of sunlight had appeared, Patrick had looked down at his sleeping form and realized that if he wanted to keep him - and he very much did- then there was something he needed to do.

So he’d lied to David, something that had brought him no joy whatsoever, and told him that he needed to head back to help Stevie with the motel. He’d gotten in his car, driven north for about an hour, only to skip the turn off for Schitt’s Creek entirely, carrying on westward instead. From there, he followed the signs for home. 

**

He expects Rachel’s mom to open the door (her car was in the driveway when he pulled up), but it’s still a punch to the gut when she does. Rachel is every bit her mother’s daughter. They share the same copper red hair and wide chestnut brown eyes. Her mother’s carry a few more lines around them, though she still looks a good ten years younger than her actual age. The smile that blooms on her face when she sees him is identical to those in each and every one of Rachel’s school photos that still line their mantle. And most importantly, it's genuine.

“Patrick,” she says warmly, immediately throwing her arms open for a hug. He slips his hands around her and in that moment he’s sixteen again, there to pick Rachel up for their winter formal. 

“Hi Margot.” His voice comes out tight from how hard she's squeezing him. She eventually releases him only to grab him by the shoulders and take a good look at his face. 

After a long beat, in which he imagines she's trying to decide how best to express what it's like to see him turn up here after all this time, she finally says, “You finally let your hair grow out.” 

It amazes him. A year ago he broke up with her daughter, ending their engagement in its tracks, and walked away from his entire life and the only place he’d ever really called his home. He knows he broke more than just Rachel’s heart that day, and yet the first thing this woman - his once future mother-in-law - can think to say to him upon his unceremonious reappearance into their lives is: _you finally let your hair grow out._

The woman could give priests lessons in forgiveness.

“You always liked it long,” he says.

“And you always said it got in your eyes during baseball.” She tousles it lightly. “I’m guessing you didn’t come all this way just to see me?”

He smiles at her touch, remembering what it was like to almost have a second mom. One who knows you and cares for you and has zero ability to ground you. “Is she home?”

“Rachel!” she calls towards the basement door. “Someone here to see you!”

He hears footsteps coming up the stairs, and a tiny burst of adrenaline floods down to his legs, telling him to run. 

“Is it Shannon?" she calls up to them. "She wasn’t supposed to be here until - ”

Whatever words were going to finish that sentence are left unspoken as she comes through the basement door and sees that it’s not Shannon who’s here after all.

“Patrick,” she says, her voice a little dazed.

“Hi Rach.” 

They stand there, eyes locked, and it feels like they've been apart for either a year or ten minutes, but Patrick can't tell which. 

Margot stands between them, looking from her daughter to her former almost-son-in-law. She allows the silence to last for all of five seconds before she claps her hands together. “Well you two clearly have some catching up to do, so I think I’ll just - ”

“Wait,” Patrick says. “Stay, it’s fine.” He looks back to Rachel, who still doesn’t look like she quite comprehend that he’s standing in her living room. “I was wondering if maybe you wanted to take a ride with me, down to the park?” He inclines his head towards the front door.

It takes a second for Rachel to register that he’s asked her a question. “Uh…sure. Yeah, we can do that.” She starts looking around herself, like she’s temporarily forgotten all the things people need to go on walks. Her mother reaches over to take her jacket from a hook by the door and hands it to her.

“Your boots are in the mudroom,” Margot reminds her.

“Boots,” Rachel repeats. “Right, yes, thank you.” She kisses her mom on the cheek and goes to grab her boots.

Margot puts her back to Rachel, so only Patrick can see her expression grow serious. “Don’t make her cry this time,” she says to him quietly. It’s a request, not a threat. But Patrick can’t make that kind of promise, and he expects she knows that. Rachel reappears then, jacket in hand and boots on her feet, sparing him from having to answer and making liars of them both.

**

The car ride is short but silent. He notices she spends most of the trip fiddling with a hair tie on her wrist - a nervous tick he remembers her doing before big exams or presentations where she’d have to speak in front of the entire class. Back then he’d reach out a hand and place it on top of hers; she’d relax a little and offer him a small smile of gratitude. Now he keeps his hands glued to the wheel.

He takes her to a park not far from her house. It’s not much more than an over-sized pond, encircled by a dirt walking path, but it’s quiet and it’s empty, save for a few brave geese who have already returned home for the season.

It’s not until they reach the trail that one of them finally breaks the silence. 

“Your parents missed you at Christmas you know,” Rachel says, ignoring the trail in favor of a bench close to the water. 

“I know. Don’t worry, Terry already read me the riot act for it.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Good. She had another girl - Rosie. I think Doug’s going to have to give up on his dreams for a son unless he wants to roll the dice on a fourth.”

Rachel turns away from the water just in time for Patrick to see her roll her eyes. “Doug should be grateful he found someone willing to have one kid with him, let alone three.” 

Patrick doesn’t take any offense on behalf of his cousin-in-law. Neither he nor Rachel had ever been his biggest fan. Doug is a nice enough guy, but he's also the loudest - and rarely the most tactful - voice of any room he's in. They’d both suffered through a few too many family gatherings that ended with Terry making a round at the end of the night to see if there was anyone she needed to make him apologize to in the morning.

"So how have you been?" he asks. 

She cocks her head at him, like she doesn't quite understand the question. "I don’t know how to answer that." 

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean, do you want to hear that I'm doing great and have a wonderful new boyfriend who my parents love? Something that makes you feel better about leaving?" The strangest thing is her words don't come out half as bitter as he'd expect, considering what she's asking him. If anything, she just sounds tired. 

"No," he says. "I really want to know how you're doing."

"How I'm doing," she repeats flatly. "Okay, here it goes: I'm living in my parents' basement apartment after moving out of our place, which is somehow sadder than just living in my old bedroom. I'm working a job for which I am overqualified and underpaid. I've been a bridesmaid in three weddings over the past year, which was exactly as much fun as it sounds. And I'm single. That is how I am doing."

He feels a sinking feeling in his stomach, pulled down by the weight of regret. He doesn't know if it's regret for asking the question, or even coming here in the first place, but neither feel like they were very good choices anymore. 

"I'm sorry," he says, two words that feel woefully inadequate given what she's just told him. 

"For leaving? Or for waiting this long to come back?"

"Little of column A, little of column B, I guess."

"Well you're here now. Want to tell me why that is?" 

“I wanted to see you.” Judging by the look on her face, she doesn’t find that answer very satisfying. “And to talk,” he adds.

“Talk," she says back with a dry little laugh. "Funny, after six months of ignoring my texts I kind of got the impression that you weren’t very interested in talking to me.”

“I know, that was…”

“Shitty?”

He knows he deserves that, and probably a lot more. “Yeah, very.”

“So what changed?”

“I had...have something I need to tell you.”

“Look, if this is about wanting to get back together - ” 

“I’m gay.” It comes out rushed, no space between the two words. But that doesn’t matter, because there’s no mistaking what he said. No taking it back either.

“You’re…” she shakes her head, either unwilling or unable to finish that sentence.

“Gay,” he finishes for her. 

“But...no. You’re not. You...we…” 

A series of emotions flickers across her face in rapid succession: confusion - hurt - disbelief. None of them surprise him. They are, in fact, the only part of this whole interaction that he had predicted with any degree of confidence.

It’s like a chemistry equation that refuses to balance. On the one side is fifteen years of love and intimacy. First kisses and first times and first ‘I love yous'. There’s Patrick down on his knee slipping an engagement ring on her finger. There are softly spoken words of affection, confessions of fears and inadequacies, silly little jokes that no one else in the world would find funny but them. There is a life they’d built together and a life they’d planned to build. And on the other side are two little words that will forever change how she sees each and every one of those things. It should take more than two words to be able to do that - to change all that - but it doesn’t. 

“I don’t understand,” she finally says. He doesn’t ask her specify, even though there’s a dozen different things that could mean.

“I know this is...unexpected. Believe me, it was for me too. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, Rachel. I am _so_ sorry for that. You deserved to know why I ended things. Th-th-that it wasn’t anything you did, or didn’t do.” His well practiced words are slipping away, and his thoughts are stumbling over themselves to get past his lips. 

Rachel runs a tired hand through her hair and draws her legs up from the ground, tucking them to her chest. “I just...I don’t get it. How you - how you couldn’t - ” 

“Trust me Rach, it’s not something I chose. It just sort of - ”

“Oh for God’s sake Patrick, I know you didn’t _choose_ to be gay,” she says, cutting him off in a clipped tone. “I know we grew up in the sticks, but give me some credit.”

“Sorry,” he says quickly. He does know her better than to think she would view sexuality as some sort of opt-in system, but he also knows she’s hurting, and that people can believe some strange things for the sake of protecting themselves. 

“What I meant was how could you not know? Fifteen years together - _fifteen_ \- and you never thought to yourself, ‘hey, this whole woman thing might not be for me’?”

Even though he knew this question was going to come, the answer he had prepared just seems so empty now that he has to actually deliver it to the person who deserves it the most. 

“It’s not as simple as knowing and not knowing,” he says. “Denial is a powerful thing Rach. And it can also be a really easy thing...especially when what you’ve already got is so damn good that you _want_ an excuse to keep it.” 

“Please don't tell me you think complimenting me is actually going to make this better. Because I promise you - it’s not.”

He plays his own words back in his head and realizes it’s not an unfair conclusion for her to reach. “I swear that’s not what I’m doing.”

“Then what are you doing? You’ve been gone for _a year_ Patrick. You ignore my texts, you don’t even visit your parents. Then you show up on my doorstep telling me there are things that I deserve to know and it feels like I’m talking to a total stranger.”

There it is - the thing he’d feared from the moment he’d decided to come out to her. That she wouldn’t be able to look at him the same. That as soon as the words ‘ _I’m gay_ ’ came out of his mouth, he would cease to be the person she’d known for almost her entire life, and loved for nearly as long. It’s a change that had somehow never taken place in the handful of other times they had broken up, either for a few weeks or a few months. But this was more final than that, wasn’t it? This wasn’t just closing the door - it was melting down the key and abandoning the house altogether. 

“Look, I spent the past fourteen hours in my car with nothing to do but try to figure out how I could explain this to you. Which you think would be enough time to come up with something good, given that it took me half my life to explain it to myself, but I don’t think anything I came up with is going to be very satisfying.”

She fixes him with a level stare. “Try anyway,” she says. “You owe me that.”

“Even if all I came up with is a bunch of shitty analogies?”

“Pick the least shitty one then, I don’t care. I just want to understand.”

“Fine,” he says, taking a breath. “It’s like cake.”

“Cake?” she immediately interrupts.

“I told you it was going to be bad, just bear with me.” She narrows her eyes at him but says nothing. “So pretty much everyone is expected to like cake. It’s just, like, ingrained in us. Anything good happens - birthday parties, baby showers, graduations, retirements - you have cake.” 

Rachel raises a hand like a student waiting to be called on. “Am I the cake in this analogy?” 

He can’t tell if she’s confused or offended by the implication, but at least she’s not shutting the whole thing down.

“Sort of - I’ll get to that part in a second. The point is, it’s really easy to never question why everyone loves it. Everyone seems so happy with it, and then they offer you a slice, and you just assume that you should love it too. You should be grateful someone wanted to share their cake with you.”

“So I was _your_ cake.”

“You were,” he says, and it strikes him how fucking strange this whole thing is, not least of all because it kind of seems like it’s working. “You were my cake for fifteen years, and I had every reason in the world to be happy about that. Everyone else was - your parents, my parents, all our friends. So if something didn’t feel right about it, if I took a bite and didn’t totally love it, then the problem must have been with me, not the cake.”

“Okay, I think we can drop the metaphor now.” She doesn’t sound half as annoyed as she did before, and when he looks over he finds her expression appears oddly calm. “You can keep talking, I just don’t want to be food anymore.”

“You were right before, about how it wasn’t just because you were pretty or nice - even though you are both those things. It was because I was scared to admit that I didn’t want what everyone and everything was telling me I should want. I thought...I thought admitting that would make me a liar.”

“How would telling the truth make you a liar?”

“It would make the life I’d led up until that point a lie. Yours too.” He pauses as a thought comes to him, something that has been tucked in the back of his mind for almost a year, only vague and without form until now. “It didn’t seem fair. It _wasn’t_ fair.”

“What wasn’t?”

“That something could just undo my life like that. Because it wasn’t that simple. Me being gay didn’t mean that I’d never loved you, or wanted a life with you - I did. I _wanted_ to want those things, so damn bad. I just didn’t want them for the right reasons. Not...not in the right ways. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

She stares at him, unblinking, and he can’t shake the feeling that she’s still not sure whether the man in front of her is the one she’s known since they were eight years old, paired off for arts and crafts in Mrs. Stein’s third grade class, or just a stranger who happens to sound a lot like him. But then her expression softens, and somehow it actually makes him feel more like himself just to have her looking at him. “That’s a lot to put yourself through just for some cake,” she says.

He can’t help but laugh, which is probably for the best because for a brief moment he was sure he was going to cry instead. Even Rachel allows herself to smile, though Patrick can still see a thin slice of hurt just behind her eyes. It’s not a fresh hurt - he’s sure he recognizes it from the day he’d ended their engagement.

“It really was,” he agrees. “Especially when it turns out I actually like pie.”

His words have their intended effect when Rachel starts to laugh as well. She waits for her laughter to subside before she says, innocently enough, “You know, some people like cake and pie.”

“True,” he says, thinking of David’s wine metaphor, and if he’d mind the dessert that Patrick had selected for his stand in. “But I really, _really_ like pie.”

Rachel nods, not looking particularly surprised by his answer. “Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask me whatever you like.”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this when we broke up? Like, the break up sucked enough on its own, but the not knowing why just made it worse. That was the part I couldn’t wrap my head around. We always told each other stuff, even when it hurt.”

“I guess I still wasn’t ready to admit it to myself. I knew enough to know that I was never going to be able to love you the way you loved me. It didn’t seem fair to you. I figured if we broke up, you’d at least have a chance to find that with someone else.”

“Well I can appreciate your motivations, but your execution fucking sucked.”

The swearing takes him by surprise (Margot had raised her with a zero tolerance policy for dirty words, for reasons he’d never quite understood given that Rachel’s father swore like a drunken sailor even when he was completely sober), but there’s no anger in her voice. Not anymore, at least.

“I know it did,” he says. “Trust me, I can safely say that’s going on my lowlight reel for the year, right next to the frozen pizza that was my Christmas dinner and the birthday I spent playing checkers with my landlord.”

“Oof,” she huffs out with a wince.

“Oof indeed.”

He decides to take a risk then, and tentatively reaches an arm out over her shoulders. He holds back that last inch, leaving the choice to her. She hesitates, then leans into it and places her head on his shoulder. 

They slip into a comfortable silence, two puzzle pieces that almost fit together, if not for the fact that they belong to entirely different puzzles. 

**

The car ride back to Rachel’s house is distinctly less quiet than the one before. Patrick tells her about his job with the town (after some convincing about its name) and she tells him about going back to school for her masters (in no small part because it would get her out of her parents house for good). As they pull into her driveway, Patrick catches sight of the curtains swaying in the front window. 

“How much do you want to bet your mum’s been watching the street like a hawk since the moment we left?” he asks.

“Oh I guarantee it. She only stopped bringing you up in conversation, like, three months ago.”

Patrick cringes at the thought, mainly out of sympathy for Rachel. “That must have been super fun.”

“She means well,” Rachel says in a tone that implies her mother does a lot of well meaning things that don’t quite land the way she intends. “The weirdest thing is that she never made it sound like she expected us to get back together. More just that things would be...fine, I guess? That everything would work itself out.”

“So you’re saying if I go in there decked out head to toe in rainbows, she’s not going to be the least bit surprised?”

“I think she’d be surprised to see you in any color that isn’t blue," she says, tugging at the sleeve of his navy sweater. 

“Touché.” 

She’s quiet for a moment, fiddling with her hair tie again. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to ask you this, but are you seeing anyone right now?”

Something in her tone makes him suspect she already knows the answer. 

“What gave it away?”

“Something tells me you didn’t just randomly decide today was the perfect day to come out to me.”

“I’ve been wanting to tell you for a while actually, but I figured in-person was the only way to do it,” he says. “Could have been worse. At one point on the drive I actually started considering the merits of sky writing.”

“Seriously?”

“The logistics would have made it tough; no way I could have found a plane on such short notice.”

She ignores his joke, knowing him well enough to be able to recognize when he’s stalling.

“So what’s his name?”

He hesitates for a moment, not sure how much of this she really wants to know. “David.”

“David,” she repeats. “Funny name for a pie. And does David know you’re here?”

He knows where this is headed, but he can’t really stop it now. His reasons for not telling David he was coming here are something he’s been reckoning with since the moment he’d gotten behind the wheel of his car.

“He does not,” he admits. “He thinks I’m helping a friend renovate her motel right now.”

“I’m guessing you must have a pretty good reason for lying to him.”

“I don't know...time will probably tell on that one. It definitely seemed like the right call when I made it.”

A cocked brow asks her question for her.

“It’s new,” he explains. “Whatever is going on between us, whatever we end up calling it, it’s just...new. And I didn’t want to start anything with this hanging over me.”

“So he didn’t ask you to come here?”

He shakes his head. “I’m doing this because I didn’t want him to have to ask. Or _want_ to ask but feel like he couldn’t.”

“I still don’t get why you couldn’t tell him what you were planning to do.”

“It’d make more sense if you knew him. He’s got this annoying self-sacrificing streak, not that he’d ever admit to it. If I’d told him what I was planning, he probably would have fallen over himself telling me not to do it for his sake.”

“But isn’t that exactly what you’re doing?”

“I guess. But I’m doing it for me too. And you. And everyone else who wonders why I just dropped off the face of the earth last year.” Their faces project across his mind - his mom and dad, Rachel, Terry, the guys from his old baseball team, Margot. People that he had once rather selfishly viewed as supporting players in his life, but who he had slowly come to realize had felt the loss of his unceremonious departure just as much as he had. He knew what it was like to really miss a place - he just never knew it could miss you back.

“So have you talked to your parents yet?”

“They’re the next stop.”

“I see.” she nods as though he just confirmed a theory for her. “I was your trial run.”

“More like your house was just the first one off the highway.”

“Seriously?”

“That, and the fact that both my parents are both at work right now.”

He sees a look in her eyes that tells him there’s a very good chance he’s about to get smacked if he keeps making jokes, and accepts the subsequent poke to his arm with grace.

“I better go inside," Rachel says. "She might end up tearing down the curtain if I make her wait any longer.”

She unclips her seat belt and reaches over to pull Patrick into a hug. “No more ignoring my texts, okay? I’m not saying we’re going to be besties from here on out, but I still want you in my life.”

“I want that too,” he says into her shoulder. “Sorry it took me so long to figure that out.”

She pulls away, and he sees a shine in her eyes. “Better late than never.” 

**

It takes three rings of the doorbell at Terry’s house before someone answers the door. Unfortunately, that someone is Doug.

“Patrick!” he shouts, pulling him into a bear hug that lifts him off his feet. Doug was a goalie for his college hockey team, a fact that he manages to work into conversation at almost every opportunity. His glory days long behind him, he’s still big enough to fill in an NHL regulation size net. Patrick feels not unlike a rag doll at the mercy of an overgrown toddler whenever Doug manages to rope him in for a hug.

He sets him back down on his feet and delivers a hard clap to his right shoulder. “Well you sure as shit don’t look like the Chinese food we ordered.”

“I’ll bring wontons with me next time,” Patrick says, still rubbing at his shoulder. “Terry home?”

“Yeah man, come on in.” He turns around and before Patrick can stop him, he bellows, “Terry! Got a surprise for you!”

He steps into their entryway and hears the sound of footfalls coming down the stairs. “Christ Doug, I just got the baby to sleep.”

She stops dead in her tracks when she sees Patrick, a shock which lasts all of three seconds before she too is throwing her arms around his neck. Given that she’s more human-sized than moose, he doesn’t mind so much.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming,” she says, giving him one last squeeze before letting him go.

“It was kind of last minute, didn’t really know I was coming until I already was.”

“And you couldn't have pulled over to give me a call?”

He’s about to offer an excuse - he doesn’t actually know what it is yet - when Doug interrupts them. “Hey babe, did the restaurant tell you how long the wait for delivery was going to be?”

Terry lets out a sigh that seems disproportionate to a question about a dinner order. “No they didn’t. Because _you_ told me to order from Chin’s, and they only do pick-up or dine in. Which is why I wanted to order from Happy Wok, but _you_ insisted that Chin’s has better lo mein.”

Patrick wonders if he’s witnessing the start of an actual honest to God throw down about Chinese food. Terry sounds decently pissed, and also not remotely surprised that she has to explain this to him. And while Doug doesn’t look angry, he also doesn’t look like he registered a word she just said. But then something clicks into place behind his eyes and a dopey smile appears on his face.

“Shit babe, you’re totally right.” He smacks his hand in the middle of his forehead, as if shocked by his own forgetfulness.

Terry shoots Patrick a look that seems to say ‘ _you see what I have to put up with?’_ , which he has a hard time reconciling with how annoyed she sounded not thirty seconds ago. 

“I know I am,” she says, grabbing a set of keys off their hook and tossing them to her husband. “And what luck, the car needs gas.”

Patrick expects some grumbling and eye rolling at this request, but once again Doug bucks his expectations. He nimbly catches the keys and drops a kiss on Terry’s cheek all in one smooth motion. 

“Two birds with one stone, good call.” He turns to Patrick and, for reasons beyond his understanding, _winks_ at him. “Later bro.”

“Later - “ Patrick starts to say, but Doug is already out the door before he can finish his sentence. He’s left standing in the foyer, asking himself the same question he'd asked his dad the day of Terry’s wedding: _just what the hell does she see in that guy?_

He’d expected his dad to agree with the sentiment. Clint Brewer was mildly incapable of _not_ getting along with someone, but even Patrick could tell he wasn’t Doug’s biggest fan. But instead he’d just looked at Patrick with this unreadable smile and said, “There’s somebody out there for everyone. Doesn’t have to make sense to the rest of us.”

Patrick, having found that explanation entirely unsatisfactory when it came to his favorite cousin, could only summon an unconvinced grunt in response. 

“You’ll see,” Clint had warned him. “If you and Rachel ever tie the knot, you’ll see.”

Even back then, mention of the idea of marrying Rachel on day had set alarm bells off in his head. Loud, blaring ones that told him to change the subject, immediately. “See what?”

“That nobody knows what a relationship is really like outside the two people who are actually in it.” He’d nodded to where Doug and Terry were in the middle of shoving cake in each other’s faces, their smiles obscured by globs of buttercream frosting. “We’re all just spectators here. Takes a lot more work to play the game.”

That’s what he feels like right now: a spectator.

He feels a tug on his shoulder, and turns to follow Terry to the kitchen. He spots Rosie sound asleep in a bassinet that’s rocking her back and forth in a gentle rhythm. He wanders over to her, and realizes that this is the first time he’s ever seen her in person; Terry was six months along when he’d moved away. She’s Terry’s double in almost every way, minus the shock of black hair that she clearly inherited from Doug. He steps away quietly, careful not to wake her. 

Terry is pulling clean plates and forks out of the dishwasher and laying them out on the counter for dinner. She barely looks up from what she’s doing when he wanders into the kitchen.

“You make a pretty cute kid,” he says.

“Thanks,” she replies. “The first two were just practice runs, but I really think I knocked it out of the park with number three.”

“Already planning her future modeling career?”

“Someone’s got to pay for our nursing homes.” She adds some empty glasses to the spread and finally turns to give Patrick her full attention, the entirety of her dinner prep complete. 

Now that he’s actually got a good look at her, it strikes him how different she looks from the last time he saw her. Besides no longer looking like she’s smuggling a soccer ball beneath her sweater, there are a number of smaller details that pop out at him too. The soft lines that used to only appear around her eyes when she laughed now seem to have taken up permanent real estate there. Her hair, which she used to keep meticulously colored and cut every two months, now reaches halfway down her back, and is Brewer brown from root to tip. There’s something else - some indescribable aspect in how she carries herself, how she moves. 

_She looks like someone’s mom_ , he thinks to himself.

Of course, she was already someone’s mom before Rosie. Two someones, actually. But the first two had been Irish twins, happening back to back in her mid-twenties, when she still found herself getting carded by disbelieving liquor store clerks whenever she tried to buy wine. Even with two babies in tow, she’d looked like the same old Terry to him. Maybe a little more tired than usual (okay, a lot more), but still young enough that she’d been mistaken for the kids’ older sister on more than one occasion.

But the woman standing in front of him now looks every bit the mother of three that she is. Not quite middle aged, but fast approaching it. When did that happen? He’d only been gone a year; was that really all it took to become an adult?

“So this is the part where you tell me what the hell you’re doing here,” she says, folding her arms and looking at him expectantly.

“You're not happy to see me?”

“Of course I am,” she replies. “But when you haven’t set foot in town for over a year - not even for Christmas - and then you turn up on my doorstep on some random Sunday in April, I'm going to have a couple questions.”

He wonders how many years he’s going to be getting shit from her for missing one Christmas. He expects he may have to measure in decades.

“I came to talk to Rachel.”

“To talk to - _oh_.” Her eyes go wide as she makes the obvious connection. “You mean, to like…”

“Come out to her?”

“Well, yeah. Did you do it yet?”

“First thing this morning.”

“Holy shit Patrick!” She slaps a hand over her mouth and spins around to check that she didn’t wake Rosie. When ten seconds pass without so much as a peep from the direction of the bassinet, she turns back around. When she speaks again, her voice comes out like a stage whisper. “That’s huge.”

“I know,” he whisper-shouts back at her. 

She must hear how ridiculous they both sound, because she switches back to a normal speaking level. “How’d she take it?” she asks.

“Better than expected.”

“What exactly did you expect? Screaming? Crying?”

“Well, I told her in front of a pond, so attempted drowning maybe?”

Terry glares at him like he’s pulling her chain; in reality he’s only half joking. “And after you realized she wasn’t going to try to kill you?”

“After that she asked me the exact same kind of questions I would have asked if I were in her shoes.”

“How long have you known, why didn’t you tell me, that sort of thing?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

She gives him a smile tinged with sympathy. “No surprises there I guess.”

“No. I kind of fumbled the answers though. Got lost in this metaphor about cake.”

“Was the cake supposed to be Rachel, or other guys?”

“Rachel. The men were pie.”

She stares at him for a few seconds, and he suspects she’s waiting for him to crack and admit he’s joking. When that doesn’t happen, she lets out a rather undignified snort. “Nicely done Patty. Can I call you when it’s time to give my kids the sex talk?”

“Ha-fucking-ha,” he replies flatly. “You try coming out sometime, see how easy it is.”

“No thanks. Doug already knows I’d leave him for Selma Hayek in a heartbeat, but we’re going to keep that between us for now.”

“Selma Hayek, really?”

“You ever see From Dusk Till Dawn?”

“Sure, but I might have been paying slightly more attention to George Clooney at the time.”

She clutches her hands to her chest and looks at him with pride. “Oh my God, you really are gay.”

“The weekend in New York with another dude didn’t tip you off?”

“I mean, sure. But now we’ve got thirty years of celebrity crushes to catch up on, you’ve got to let me have this. Speaking of New York, what’s going on with - ,” she hesitates on the name. “Derek?”

“David,” he corrects her. “He’s good. We’re…”

“A we?”

He laughs at how excited she sounds at the prospect. “Maybe.” Her face falls a little, so he adds, “Probably. Very likely. We’re just trying to figure out how it would work.”

“You mean the whole long distance thing?”

“For starters. To say we lead very different lives would be a pretty big understatement.’

“So what? Does he make you happy?”

“Very,” he answers without even pausing to think.

“Then you’ll figure it out." She says it like it's a given, a foregone conclusion. "The best things are always worth the trouble.”

He wonders who would have thought that getting stuck in an elevator on New Years Eve would have been the least of his and David’s trouble?

“So judging by the backpack you left by the door, I'm going to assume you need to crash here tonight?”

He winces, having hoped for a smoother transition to bring it up. “Maybe...okay, yes, I do. But in my defense I was planning on staying at my parent’s house tonight. I was actually going to, you know, _talk_ with them too.”

“Did you have a whole route planned out? Like a _Tour de Gay_?” she asks in a ridiculous French accent.

“I’m starting to think telling you over the phone was a good idea if it spared me your whole stand up routine.”  
  


“Thanks, I’ve got a million of them. So I take it this also means you realized your parents are out of town?”

“After three hours of sitting in their driveway, yeah, I figured that one out.”

“That's because they’re up camping at Dog Lake for the week.”

“In April? The ice won't even have thawed yet.”

“Your dad compromised and got a cabin. Your mom gets a fireplace and your dad gets to hike in the freezing cold - everybody wins. You see, these are all things you would know if you actually called them more often.”

“Hey, I’ve gotten better,” he says defensively. “It’s not my fault they didn’t tell me about their vacation plans.”

“You had a fourteen hour drive Patty, plenty of time to call ahead.”

He’d argue with her, if not for the fact that she’s completely right. He’d been so focused on what he was going to say to Rachel that the plan for his parents had taken a backseat. 

He hears the sounds of the car pulling into the driveway, headlights flashing briefly in the window.

“Is Doug going to mind me crashing on your couch?”

“Not at all. Just so long as you don’t mind sitting through a couple hours of Canadian Pickers before bed.” His face falls, a sight which apparently inspires absolute delight in her. “That’ll teach you to call ahead next time.”

**

Three hours later, with a belly full of Chinese food and having watched Scott and Sheldon pick their way through about twenty different barns, Patrick breathes a sigh of relief as Doug announces he’s going to bed.

“It was good seeing you Patrick,” he says, with another jarring pat on the shoulder that threatens to knock him right out of his chair. “Hope things work out for you and your man beau.”

_Man beau_. He’s going to have to remember to tell David about that one.

“Thanks Doug. That’s, uh...real nice of you.”

He drops a kiss atop Terry’s head, and waves the room a final goodnight. Patrick waits until he hears the upstairs bedroom door close before he speaks.

“So Doug seems…” he doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. None of the words that come to mind are all that complimentary. 

“Oh God, just stop. We both know you don’t like him.”

“I like him fine,” Patrick insists, dropping his voice because with his luck it will turn out that Doug has super hearing.

“You _tolerate_ him. There’s a difference.”

Patrick shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He’s managed to make it almost eight years without ever having to tell Terry what he actually thinks of her husband, and that includes being an usher at their wedding. It helps that he usually only runs into him at major holidays, where it’s easy enough to dip out of conversation, or pawn him off an unsuspecting cousin. It’s not that he’s not a nice guy, he’s just -

“He’s a lot,” Terry says, finishing his thought. “It’s not exactly a revelation, I live with the guy.”

“He’s an acquired taste,” Patrick says, two parts diplomacy and one part bullshit.

Terry barks out a laugh so loud it startles the baby. Her eyes pop open briefly and then, finding absolutely nothing of interest going on, drift slowly closed. “Patty, you are good at so very many things, but lying isn’t one of them.”

“You know you’re the second person this week to tell me I have a shitty poker face.” He leaves out the part that the last person to say it was in the middle of undressing him at the time. It doesn’t really seem relevant.

“Maybe the universe is telling you that you either need to stop lying, or get a lot better at it. You want coffee?”

“You got any tea?”

“You’re the only one who drinks it, so there’s a decent chance it’s the same box that was here the last time you visited.”

“That’s fine.” He watches her fill the kettle and drop it on the stove, then turn the Keurig on for herself. Before he can object, she goes full blown hostess and starts putting together a small plate of cookies and crackers.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she says, again with that uncanny knack for making it seem like she can read his mind. “Breastfeeding makes me snacky, ninety percent of this is for me.”

He reaches out and plucks a ginger snap of the plate, savoring the sweet crunch as he bites it in half. “You know, you’re being a surprisingly good host to a guy who just admitted he doesn’t really like your husband.”

“To be fair you didn’t admit anything. You just did a really bad job of pretending.” She pulls the kettle as soon as it starts to whistle and fills a mug, remembering to leave room for milk. “Besides,” she says, placing the drink down in front of him, “you don’t _have_ to like him. I do.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Is it some variation of ‘why do you like him’?”

“...maybe.” 

She finally sits down with her own cup, filled with something that reeks of hazelnuts and artificial sweetener, and looks at him like she’s entertaining the option of telling him to shove it. Instead, she surprises him with a question. “Did I ever tell you what it was like for me right after Anna was born?”

Anna is her oldest daughter, having just turned seven in January. He tries to recall the specifics of her birth, but nothing stands out. He remembers visiting them about a month after Anna was born. Terry had seemed tired but happy, as did Doug. She’d carried Anna around in a sling the whole time, wrapped around the front of her body. He remembers being scared to go up and give her a hug lest he squish the baby in the process.

“No,” he says. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, it’s nothing personal. Most people don’t exactly love talking about their postpartum depression. Makes for awkward dinner conversation.” 

He freezes with his mug halfway to his mouth. “Jesus Ter, I didn’t - I mean you never seemed - ”

“Depressed?”

He shrugs helplessly, feeling woefully out of his depth here.

“Yeah, well, I put on a good game face when I had to. I was already crawling out of it by the time you came to visit, but it didn’t come easy.”

“What didn’t?”

“Ummm...everything? Eating, sleeping, getting dressed. You know, things your average five year old can manage. Plus a few upgrades from your standard depression: crying every time Anna cried, refusing to hold her. That time I hid in a closet for two hours while Doug’s parents visited so they wouldn’t have to witness me not knowing how to take care of their grandchild.” 

“Sounds like hell.”

She sips her coffee and nods. “A pretty decent approximation.”

“And you never had anything like that? Before Anna, I mean?”

“Nope. Pretty smooth sailing until then. But pregnancy is a strange beast.” She reaches over and picks up the small stuffed duck that Rosie had let slip from her fingers as she slept. She tucks it back by her side, careful not to wake her.

“You did it two more times though,” he says, gesturing to Rosie’s sleeping form.

“I did indeed. And you can thank Doug for that.”

“Doug?” The name comes out with maybe a touch more disbelief than he’d intended. 

“You could at least pretend you didn’t have such low expectations for him,” she says, reaching out to jab him in the shoulder.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean - ”

“Yeah you did. You and your dad both think he’s a dunce.”

Patrick cringes but doesn’t bother to deny it. He can recall a few variations of that word that he’s heard his father use over the use, and a few he’d volunteered himself - dolt, bonehead, dummy. Nothing that ever made it seem like he was a bad person - he wasn’t, not by anyone’s definition. But Terry had always been smart as a whip, both inside the classroom and out of it, and the differences between the two of them had always been, well...stark. He was simply, as his mother had once delicately put it, not the crunchiest chip in the bag.

“This is the part where you tell me how much we’ve been underestimating him?”

“Nope,” she says, to his utter surprise. “Doug is a complete and total goober, to the bone. And he’d tell you that himself.”

Patrick can’t help but glance up at the mantle over their fireplace, where their family portrait sits in a solid bronze frame. He could swear that Doug’s eyes were looking right at him.

Terry follows his gaze and chuckles to herself. She points at her husband in the photo. “That goober knew something was off as soon as we brought Anna home. He left me alone at first. I think he figured maybe I just needed a few days to adjust, plus neither of us were getting much sleep anyway.”

“What made him finally say something?”

“I’m pretty sure it was the not showering for five days in a row that really clinched it for him.” Patrick scrunches up his nose just imagining the funk, and Terry nods in a way that says _trust me, I know_. “In the end he realized he could either take care of Anna or he could take care of me, but he couldn’t do both. He ended up calling in for reinforcements.”

“Reinforcements?”

“My grandma on my mom’s side,” she explains. “Who is not exactly a warm and cuddly person by nature. In another life I think she would’ve made a great gym teacher, just watching kids scrape their knees and yelling at them to walk it off.”

“Kind of a weird choice for backup.”

“She also had six kids of her own. I didn’t need her to knit me a sweater, I just needed someone who knew what the hell was going on.”

“And she did?”

“Big time. Between the two of them, they finally convinced me to go see the doctor about it. The doctor convinced me to talk to a therapist, who convinced me to give a low dose antidepressant a try, and eventually the antidepressant convinced me that I wasn’t the worst mother in the entire world and that my child wasn’t actually destined to hate me.”

She holds out her hands as if to say, voilà - a mildly functioning adult. 

“You really believed those things?”

She hesitates before answering, searching for the words that might make him understand. "Yes and no. It’s like...it’s like watching a horror movie that scared you as a kid and finding out it still makes you want to sleep with the light on. And even though you’re an adult - with a house and a car and all that other shit that proves you’re not a kid anymore - there’s still a voice in the back of your head telling you the monsters are going to come out and get you when you turn that light off. They’re under the bed and they’re in the closet and they’re just...waiting. There’s no logic that can talk you out of it because logic didn’t talk you into it.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t know,” he says, even though it feels like such an empty sentiment, delivered seven years too late. “I wish I could have been there to help.”

“That’s sweet. Completely unnecessary, but sweet. Unless twenty-three year old Patrick had a lot of experience with postpartum depression that I never knew about?” It’s a tease, not a judgement.

“Well...no. About as much as Doug I’m guessing.”

“Doug knew jack shit about it,” she concedes. “I mean, eventually he knew _everything_ about it, but it was like pulling teeth just to get him to crack a baby book before Anna was born. He was flying blind.”

“He still knew something was wrong though.”

“He knew _me_. That was all that really mattered.”

“I guess this is the part where I need to eat some serious crow about how I’ve acted towards him these past few years.”

“Oh please,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “You’ve acted fine. You wouldn’t be your father’s son if you were actually capable of being mean to someone’s face.”

“Still, I haven’t exactly been super welcoming.”

“And you don’t have to be. Look, I get it - why he isn’t a big hit with the family. He’s loud and he’s got no filter and you’re all sitting there wondering why I’m not married to some college professor or just, you know, someone who actually reads on occasion.”

“Please don’t tell me Doug can’t read.” He’s joking, but he also counts himself lucky that Terry doesn’t have anything throwable within arm’s reach.

She stares down at her mug, tapping her wedding ring lightly against the rim. “You know, it took me by surprise too,” she says. “One minute I’m sitting there wondering what the hell this hockey player is doing following around a girl who can barely stand to sit through a highlight reel, and the next I’m wondering why the days I don’t get to see him feel so damn empty.”

He immediately thinks of how hollow the three months he’d spent apart from David had felt. How as soon as he saw him again, his brain had reassigned the memory of those months as filler, mere placeholders, until two nights ago, when someone hit the ‘play’ button on his life once more.

“Funny how that happens,” he says, mostly to himself.

“Funny how often we take it for granted.”

“We still talking about Doug?”

She lifts her shoulders in a shrug. “I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into if you and David decide to really give this thing a shot. Being with Rachel was easy, aside from the whole not being into chicks things.”

“A minor detail,” he says.

“Super minor, don’t even know why I brought it up,” she says dryly. "My point is, you only stayed together for as long as you did because all the rest of it was easy. You’d known each other almost your whole lives, your families were close, Rachel was practically impossible to dislike.”

He thinks back to calling Doug an ‘acquired taste’ and wonders just how many people had ever referred to David that way. He’s guessing more than a few.

“I want you to be prepared for it to not be easy, that’s all.”

He wonders if there’s some psychic gene in his family that had skipped him entirely, or if his poker face really is that bad. Whatever the case, he’s starting to suspect the phone call in which he came out to Terry didn’t exactly come as a shock to her. Maybe he should try asking her for the winning lotto numbers, or for the date of his future wedding. 

He looks up from his now cold tea, and finds Terry staring back at him curiously. “Maybe you were right before,” he says. “The best things are worth the trouble.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I owe this chapter to two very good, very patient friends, who told me about the kinds of struggles I've never had to deal with myself.


	23. Define weird

If Google Maps hadn’t directed them all the way to the parking lot, David probably would have driven straight past the motel purely on the assumption that it was an abandoned building, and not the place Patrick had intended for them to spend the weekend.

“Are you sure this is it?” Alexis asks.

“Positive. It's the _only_ motel in town.”

She leans forward and cranes her neck up to look at the sign. “It doesn’t even have a name.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it literally just says ‘motel’ in big red letters.”

David checks for himself, and damned if she isn't telling the truth. They’ve been parked for almost five minutes now, and neither of them have made any moves to get out of the car.

Alexis tugs nervously at the gold chain around her neck, weaving it between her fingers and making the charms jingle. “I don’t know David. This place is like, super murdery.”

“ _Super murdery_?” He understood coming into this that he and Patrick were accustomed to very different standards of accommodation, but he hadn't expected him to recommend a motel where there was a fifty-fifty chance of ending up in a snuff film.

“Think about it - someone sneaks into your room in the middle of the night to cut your throat. You fight them off, grab your phone, and make a run for it. Even if you manage to call the police, how are you going to tell them where you are? ‘The Motel’? They’re going to be too busy trying to figure out which one you’re talking about while you go full Drew Barrymore from Scream.”

“But if it’s the only motel in town, won’t they know which one you’re talking about?”

“Well if you really want to poke holes in it,” she pouts. “But I’ve seen you run, they still wouldn’t get here in time.”

“Oh my God, no one is getting murdered!" He forces himself to take a deep breath so he doesn't end up having to eat his own words when he strangles her. "Look, it’s a crappy motel, in the middle of nowhere, but since it turns out that I happen to own a decent chunk of nowhere, this is where we’re staying.” He doesn’t have a gavel to bang for emphasis, so he settles for slapping his hand against the steering wheel.

Alexis looks like she’s not ready to give up just yet, but sensing his dwindling patience she puts up her hands in surrender. “Fine, but you’re checking us in.”

“Seriously?”

“If you’re not back in ten minutes, then I’m going to assume the person at the front desk gutted you with their hook hand and I’ll still be able to get away.”

“Fine, but when I get back we're going to have a serious conversation about what kind of movies Adelina let you watch when you were little.”

“Fine.” 

He kills the engine, but leaves the keys in the ignition. He steps out of the car only to lean back down and glare at her through the window. “But if I get murdered in there, I’m going to come back and haunt you _so hard_.”

**

The dreary aesthetic of the motel is not remotely improved by its front office. It looks like Archie and Edith Bunker got to design a hunting cabin only to have it converted into a pay by the hour motel. One wall is adorned by a gaudy gold hanging…sculpture... _thing,_ and the other features three taxidermied fish and a Bob Ross style painting of an elk. The whole room reeks of stale coffee and menthol cigarettes. David can’t actually remember the last time he stayed at a hotel that offered smoking rooms, but he’s starting to consider the possibility that stepping through the front door has sent him forty years into the past.

“Can I help you?” a voice comes from behind the desk. He has to take a step to the side in order to find its source: a petite brunette tucked behind an ancient computer monitor. The sight of which makes him downgrade his hopes that this place has wifi from slim to non-existent. 

The woman herself is pretty but plain; prettier still if not for the wardrobe cribbed directly from Kurt Cobain. Questionable taste aside, she’s got the kind of clear, fair skin that he knows certain friends of his back in New York would sacrifice any number of small children to attain, and hair that looks far better than someone who’s probably never paid more than twenty dollars for a haircut deserves.

“Hi - yes, do you work here?”

She looks around herself as though he might be addressing someone else. “No, this is just the only computer in town with solitaire,” she replies, deadpan. "We all take turns on it, this is my day."

“Was that a joke?” he asks.

“Apparently not a very good one.”

Oh joy. He loves for his customer service experiences to feel like work. 

“I need a room please. Two, actually.”

She spins back to the computer, presumably to exit out of her solitaire game, and begins typing. “Last name?”

“Rose.”

The typing stops abruptly. Her eyes peek out over the top of the screen and study him with decidedly more interest than before. 

“David Rose?” she asks.

“Umm...yes?” Goddammit, Alexis was right - he is going to get murdered here. “Sorry, do I know you?”

“No,” she replies, reaching for her cellphone. “But I know you.”

He waits for some type of explanation, but after a few seconds of silence it becomes clear that one isn’t forthcoming. 

“Excuse me?”

He tries tapping on the service bell to get her attention, which might be a touch more effective if it wasn’t broken. Her hand shoots out from behind the desk and takes the bell away. 

“That’s kind of just there for show.”

“And that’s not really how bells work, but okay. What do you mean you know me?”

She finishes typing out her message, places the phone back on the counter, and returns to eyeing him with about ten to twenty percent more interest than he's comfortable with. “I mean that when your best friend bones his way out of the closet with the heir to a video rental chain fortune, you’re bound to do at least a basic Google search.”

It finally clicks into place who he’s talking to. “You’re Stevie.”

She grabs hold of her shirt, waving a small plastic tag on the chest at him. “Patrick never mentioned your incredible powers of observation.”

He bristles at the comment, having not bothered to look at the name tag because a) he didn’t really care what her name was once he'd decided she wasn’t going to kill him and b) when Patrick said his friend _owned_ a motel, he assumed that meant she paid someone else to work the front desk.

He forces a smile, though it feels stiff and out of place on his face. Patrick has mentioned Stevie enough times for it to be clear that she’s a pretty important friend to him, maybe even his best friend ( _do people have those outside of primary school?_ ), so it’s probably in his best interest to keep this whole thing relatively civil.

“Well it's nice to finally put a face to the name.”

She squints at him, clearly not buying the one eighty change in his attitude. “Mmhmm. So Patrick only mentioned you needing one room tonight. What changed?”

“My sister ended up tagging along." He doesn't even attempt to sound thrilled about that development, though it's hardly the most annoying thing she's ever done. "Is that a problem?”

When she’d volunteered to come the night before, his first instinct had been to ask her why the hell she would want to do something like that. More to the point, why would _he_ want her to do something like that? He’d spent a decent portion of his adult life avoiding scenarios where he might walk in on her with another guy (or for a brief period in her early twenties, another girl). The possibility of them sharing a hotel room wall for the weekend quite frankly horrified him. Granted it would be him in the room with another guy this time, but he had to stand principle. 

Still, he hadn’t stopped her from getting in the car. Instead he’d tried reassuring her all the way back to the apartment that he _really_ didn’t need her to tag along. She’d brushed him off easily enough, insisting that it wasn’t something she _had_ to do, it was something she _wanted_ to do. That morning, with the car packed and their to-go order waiting to be picked up from Starbucks, he’d taken one last shot at talking her out of it.

“This is going to be so boring for you,” he’d pointed out.

“Not as much as a weekend stuck with Mum and Dad,” she’d countered. It wasn't something he could argue with, though he stubbornly continued to try. 

“So what, you’re really just going to sit in a shitty motel room all night?”

“I can always go check out the town while you and Patrick…"

"Talk?" 

"Sure. Worst comes to worst, I’ll hit up the bar.”

“How do you even know there’s a bar?”

“Trust me, I’ll find one.” As if confidence alone could will a bar into existence. 

He thought long and hard for a good reason to ask her not to come, and before he accepted that simply asking her 'could you not?' wasn't going to cut it this time. It was only halfway through their drive that he was finally able to admit to himself that he actually kind of appreciated how badly she wanted to come with him. Was it necessary? No. Would he have done it if the roles were reversed? Definitely not. But even so, he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t nice to have someone in his corner, just for the sake of being there.

“No problem at all,” Stevie says, gesturing out at the empty lobby. “It’s not exactly peak season right now.”

He looks to his right at a small rack of pamphlets, all advertising what little there is to do around here. A couple of wineries, and outdoor adventure park that doesn’t open until June. There’s a very fine layer of dust lying undisturbed over all of them. “Does this place have a peak season?”

Stevie follows his gaze and purses her lips tightly when she realizes what he's looking at. “Do you care?”

David waves his hand noncommittally. He suspects that he probably should, given that he technically owns the town, but it’s hard to picture himself giving two shits about it if Patrick didn’t live here, no matter whose name is on the deed.

“Didn’t think so,” she says. 

Stevie leans back and plucks two keys off a rack behind the desk. She slides them across the desk, then falls back into her chair, arms folded. David doesn’t reach for the keys yet. He’s too busy trying to figure out if he’s actually done something to warrant this level of bitchiness, or if this is just her default setting. He doesn’t hate it - he enjoys good sass as much as the next person - but he prefers to have earned it.

“I’m sorry, have I wronged you somehow? Did my father build a store on your grandmother’s burial site or something?”

“Not that I know of.”

“So you just treat everyone who comes in here like they've just microwaved fish in a communal kitchen?”

She props an elbow up on the counter and rests her chin in her hand, managing to look equal parts bored and thoughtful at the same time. “I mean, technically I do. But in my defense, ninety percent of the people who come through here are truckers who like to ask if I'm included with the room.”

“Charming. Still doesn’t explain what I did to deserve this level of sass. It usually takes people at least fifteen minutes to decide they don’t like me.”

“Who says I don’t like you?”

“This is how you talk to people you _like_?”

She uncrosses her arms and walks out from behind the desk. He suspects the walk is meant to be an intimidating one, but she’s a full head shorter than him and maybe a buck twenty soaking wet. Even with her chest puffed and her chin jutted out, it’s hard to take this genderbent Eddie Vedder seriously.

“I like Patrick,” she says, her tone even but firm. “He’s a good person.”

"I see. Is that what this little guard dog routine is all about?”

“And because he’s a good person,” she continues as though he hadn’t spoken, “he tries to see the good in other people, whether they deserve it or not.”

He thinks he sees where this is going. “I take it you don’t think I deserve him?”

“The three months of radio silence I watched you put him through aren’t exactly working in your favor, but no. That’s not what I’m saying.”

He tries not to flinch at the mention of those three months. He doesn’t know how much Patrick told her, but he gets the feeling she knows a lot more about him than a simple Google search would have turned up.

“Then what are you saying?”

“That I _want_ you to deserve it, for Patrick’s sake. But unfortunately the fact that you remind me _way_ too much of me doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.”

David fights the urge to laugh at the comparison. He looks between the two of them, trying to visualize a Venn diagram of things they might have in common. What he ends up picturing are two separate circles, with roughly four feet of space between them.

“You’re right, it’s like looking in a mirror.”

Her eyes narrow at his little quip. It’s possible she’s trying to look threatening, but the fact that she already has a pretty angry resting bitch face makes it hard to tell. 

“Alright,” she says, taking a little step into his personal space. “So what if I were to throw out some words like...defensive? Sarcastic? Maybe even...I don’t know...completely and utterly averse to sincerity? Are you really going to try to tell me I’m not even in the ballpark?”

He taps his foot impatiently as she rattles off her list. This whole exchange is decidedly less fun for him than it was only a minute ago. She looks up at him, her eyes daring him to lie. “Maybe,” he admits. “But I’m working on it.”

She holds his gaze for a few more seconds - he almost starts counting them - before granting one curt nod. “Good.”

She returns to the desk, leaving David standing there feeling like he blinked and missed out on half the conversation without even realizing it.

“Good?” he asks incredulously.

Stevie looks up from the computer. “What?”

“That’s it? You give that whole little speech, I tell you I’m working on it, and you’re just...satisfied?”

“Pretty much. Why, did you want me to keep being mean to you?”

“Well...no.” He wonders if this is what it feels like to have a conversation with himself. God, he hopes not. “I just thought there’d be...I don’t know. More? Like if this were a movie, you would’ve followed that whole thing up with a threat to kill me if I hurt him.”

She leans away from him even though they’re already ten feet apart. “I’m sorry, you want me to say I’m going to _murder_ you?”

“Metaphorically! Not like…' _murder’_ murder.”

She holds up her hands like she’s throwing in the towel. “Look man, you said you were going to try to be better for him. That’s all I needed to hear.”

“But why?”

“Because I’ve literally never tried. For anyone. Ever. So it's not entirely lost on me what a big deal it is that you are. Legend has it that's called personal growth. Mazel tov.”

“I don't know that I've ever been held to such a low expectation. I don't know if it's more insulting to me or to you?”

Stevie doesn’t look particularly bothered by the question. “Also I don’t need to threaten to kill you. Fuck this up, and you lose Patrick. If that’s not good enough motivation for you, then I don’t know what to tell you.”

He stands there awkwardly while his rage, now lacking a proper outlet, slowly leaks out of him. What is there for him to get mad about? That Patrick has a friend looking out for him? That said friend already has him sized up with a disturbing degree of accuracy? Fuck it, at least he doesn’t have to waste anytime trying to get on her good side, not when they both already know what cards the other one is holding. Not to mention the fact that she was right about the risk of losing Patrick again being all the incentive he needs to try to make this work. 

Alright. He can work with this. But only if Patrick doesn’t have any other best friends in this shitty little town because he doesn’t think he can deal with two of her.

“Well...okay then.” He fiddles with the keys in his hand. “May I ask you a non-Patrick, work related question?”

Her phone chimes - she checks the screen but doesn’t respond to whatever it is. “You may.”

“Are these rooms adjoining? Because even though my sister and I are close,” he pauses, re-evaluates. “Close-ish. I don’t know, we’re working on it. But either way I don’t really want - ”

“Your sister hearing you two fuck each other’s brains out?” Stevie offers.

“I mean, that wasn’t necessarily the phrasing I was going to use, but yes, in spirit.”

“Give me some credit, I'm not that much of a heinous bitch- she’s in five, you’re in eight. Which you would have noticed if you’d actually bothered to check your keys.” He looks down at the little placards attached to the key chains she’d given him. He couldn’t recall ever staying in a hotel where they gave you an actual physical key to your room as opposed to an electronic key card. Sure enough, each placard is embossed with a small white number - **5** and **8**.

“Would you look at that,” he mutters. “Thank you. Maybe not for the...fucking...part. But the room thing.”

“No problem. I’d offer to help you with your bags but to be honest I don’t really want to.” Then, almost as an afterthought, she adds. “Oh, and Patrick should be here soon.”

David, who already has one foot out the door, does a quick one eighty back into the room. “Wait, how does he already know that I’m here? Is there, like, a spy network in this town that watches for outsiders?”

“If by spy network you mean I texted him when you got here, then yeah, we’re practically living in a John le Carré novel.”

She stares at him, patiently waiting for some kind of witty retort in return. 

Instead, he offers an observation. “You know, you are weirdly thoughtful for someone so hostile.”

“I contain multitudes.”

**

David didn’t expect his room to be much better than the front office. The original owners had clearly never invested in a personal decorator, let alone one for each individual room. But what he didn’t expect, _because why the hell would he_ , was for his room to have a mirror on the ceiling and red satin headboard in the shape of a heart. 

Fucking Stevie. 

He can practically smell the polyester in the sheets, along with the ghosts of God knows how many long haul truck drivers who had stayed here with a lady of the night. Lady of the night? Jesus Christ, he really was turning into his mother. A few more years and he’d have a wig collection rival her own.

A knock at the door distracts him from the horror show that is his accommodations for the evening. His stomach does a happy little flip before he opens it, fully expecting to see Patrick waiting for him on the other side. Instead he finds his sister, arms crossed, one heel tapping impatiently on the ground.

“What?” David hisses, trying to check behind her for any sign of Patrick’s car.

“It’s my room David.”

“What about it?”

“It’s _disgusting_.”

“So?”

“So I can’t stay the night here! The shower has mold, the bedding smells musty, and I’m like ninety percent sure that there’s something living in the coffee maker.”

He finds his gratitude towards her desire to be here for moral support dwindling quickly.

“What did you expect? It’s Schitt’s Creek, Ontario, not Paris or…I don't know…Indianapolis.”

“Is it too much to ask that my pillows not be older than I am?”

“Yes,” David replies, and tries to shut the door on her.

She jams her Jimmy Choo into the frame before he can get it closed all the way. “Ugh David, cut it out! What’s your room like? Do you want to trade?”

Thinking this part might actually be worth the laugh, he swings the door open and sweeps an arm out towards the bed. “It’s all yours.”

Alexis leans into the room carefully, like a vampire that hasn’t been officially invited into someone’s house. 

“Oh my God.” It comes out a horrified whisper.

“I know.”

“ _Oh my God_.”

“ _I know._ ”

“Why does this exist?” she asks, finally noticing the mirror and its strategic position above the bed.

“Would you believe me if I said it’s because I’m being punished?”

“What, like by God?”

“More like a front desk clerk who thinks she’s God.” She looks back at him, clearly puzzled. “Never mind, it’s a long story. Can I safely assume you don’t want to trade anymore?”

She surveys the room one last time, her nose turned up in disgust. “Umm, no. Definitely not.”

He steals another glance over her shoulder. “Yeah, didn’t think so. Now I mean this as nicely as possible, but please fuck off.”

“Wow, rude much? Why do I need to leave?”

The answer to her question appears behind her almost as soon as she asks it.

“Knock knock,” Patrick says, announcing his presence like a middle aged dad at his pre-teen daughter’s sleepover. David really shouldn’t enjoy it half as much as he does, but he’s already imagining what Patrick would look like in Dockers and a pair of penny loafers. It’s barely been a week since the last time he got laid, it's far too soon to be having these kinds of fantasies.

Alexis shoots him one last glare, one that tells him exactly how hard she’s judging him for trying to make her leave before Patrick could notice her, then shifts her face into a welcoming smile and spins around. “Oh my God, Patrick!”

She pulls him into a hug and David notices how Patrick’s hands hover cautiously for a moment before giving her a polite pat in the middle of her back. _How did you ever pass for straight_ , he wonders. Alexis finally releases him and he takes a step around her, revealing a strikingly similar outfit to the one he’d worn the night they’d met: blue flannel, dark jeans, and the same beat up old pair of boots. _Oh yeah, that’s how_. 

He slips a hand over David’s hip and brushes a soft kiss against his cheek. “Hi there.”

“Hi.”

“You look nice.”

David glances down at his outfit. He’s wearing his favorite striped sweater from All Saints, and a pair of skinny black jeans that do some fairly complimentary things for his ass. He’d considered his wardrobe choices for the weekend carefully. Usually he couldn't give two shits about what people think of his clothes, but he didn’t think visiting his boyfriend and the rural town that he apparently owns for the first time was really the time nor place for statement pieces. Besides, the weather was still way too cold for any of his skirts. 

“Thank you. And you look very...ummm,” he pauses, searching for a word that could feasibly pass for a compliment. “Practical.”

Patrick pats him on the arm, not looking particularly offended. “Nice try.” He leans in and drops his voice down to a whisper. “You didn’t tell me your sister was coming.”

“She invited herself and she’s never taken no for an answer in her life.”

“Gotcha.” He throws his arms out, speaking to both of them. “Anyone down for lunch and a tour of the town?”

David catches Alexis mid-nod and makes a slashing motion across his throat. He even gives sibling telepathy a try. 

_Don’t say yes. Don’t say yes. Don’t say yes. Don’t you fucking dare say yes._

It’s probably more the desperation in his eyes than the telepathy thing that gets his message across, but whatever it is, she freezes and quickly paints on an apologetic expression. “I’m actually beat from the drive,” she says. “I think I’m going to grab a quick nap instead.”

“No worries,” says Patrick, actually managing to sound a little bummed. “Maybe we’ll do dinner tonight instead?”

“Mmhmm, totally.” She sticks her hand out at David. “Can I get your car keys?”

He instinctively turns his body so the pocket containing his keys is facing away from her, like she might lunge for them at any moment. “Why would you need my keys if you’re just taking a nap?”

“Umm, so I’m not stuck here if I wake up before you guys get back?”

He trusts Alexis with his car about as much as he trusts her with a Tamagatchi, which is to say not at all. She notices his hesitation and stomps her foot down. 

“Seriously? I’m a _good_ driver.”

“Good is a very imprecise term. Like most people would say that blueberry muffins and peach Bellinis are both ‘good’, but only one of them made you sleep with an American Idol runner up.”

Her eyes go wide. 

“Oh so we’re just dropping truth bombs now? Is that what’s happening? Why don’t I tell Patrick about the time you applied to be a personal shopper for Lauren Conrad? Last I checked you’re still not allowed within, what, thirty feet of her?”

“Why don’t you go suck a - ”

Patrick takes a step between the two of them and throws his hands up. “Okay, that’s enough, everybody holster their weapons.”

David begrudgingly crosses his arms and falls silent. Alexis follows suit, only to stick her tongue out at him when Patrick looks away.

Patrick digs into his pocket and pulls out his car keys. “Alexis can take my car and I’ll ride with David. Everybody wins.” He holds them out to Alexis only for David to snatch them away before she has the chance. 

“No way, I'm not letting you do that. She can take my car.”

“It’s really no big deal,” Patrick insists. “I drive a fifteen year old Camry, it can take a lot more damage than your Audi can.”

“Umm, excuse me?” Alexis waves a hand until they’re both looking at her. “I’d just like to point out that between the three of us, I’d bet good money that I’m the only one who’s ever successfully driven a getaway vehicle, so maybe you could both stop acting like I don’t even know how to parallel park.”

David and Patrick exchange confused looks. 

“Who were you driving a getaway vehicle for?” asks Patrick.

“And who were you running away from?” asks David.

“Legally I’m not allowed to disclose that since they sold the film rights. But either way, I’d appreciate it if everyone got off my dick about my driving skills. Okay?”

David sighs, but tosses her his keys anyway. All he wants is five uninterrupted minutes alone with Patrick, and the potential hit on his insurance rates is a price he’s willing to pay to get them.

“Meet us back here at six for dinner? As in actual six, not Alexis time six?”

“Alexis time?” Patrick asks.

“Like normal time, except everything happens an hour and a half later than you planned. She’s _basically_ her own time zone.”

“It’s called being fashionably late David. You know in Spain they don’t even eat dinner until midnight.”

“I'm sorry, do I look like Javier Bardem to you?”

He notices Patrick studying his face, and he holds up a finger as soon he sees him open his mouth. “Don’t answer that.” He turns the finger towards Alexis and raises a brow.

“Ugh...fine. I’ll be here at six.”

She blows Patrick an air kiss to his apparent amusement, and spins on her heel. They can hear the click of her shoes all the way down the sidewalk to her room. 

“Do you think she’ll really be here on time?” Patrick asks.

“Definitely not.”

“Is there a reason you don’t look all that bothered about it? No offense, but you did almost bite a pregnant woman’s head off for asking to cut in front of you at the bakery that one time.”

David remembers the incident he’s referring to, and stands by it. He firmly believes that the ability to reproduce doesn’t entitle someone to the last cinnamon roll at Michaeli, a belief he is ready to defend against any and all mommy bloggers who take issue with it.

“I didn’t actually want to eat dinner until seven. Everybody wins.”

“Clever,” Patrick remarks with an air of admiration.

“If my sister has taught me anything, it’s how to think strategically.” He slides closer to Patrick, who’s still barely through the door, and leans down to give him a more thorough greeting. So thorough, in fact, that he’s got him pressed against the door frame in a matter of seconds.

“Mmm,” Patrick hums as he pulls away. “Keep that up and there’s a good chance we’ll be giving Stevie an eyeful out on the sidewalk.”

“Uh huh...about Stevie…”

A worried little crease appears on Patrick’s forehead. “What? Did she say something weird to you?”

“Define weird.”

“Anything involving eggplants, or other vaguely phallic produce.”

“No, definitely not. But she is responsible for this.” He steps behind Patrick and steers him by the shoulders towards the bed, kicking the door closed behind him. 

He can’t see his face, so he’s not entirely sure how the whole ‘love shack’ vibe is working for him until he hears him mutter under his breath. “Fucking Stevie.”

“You haven’t even seen the best part yet.”

“Best?”

David points to the ceiling. 

“ _Fucking Stevie_ ,” Patrick says again, louder this time. “Do you want me to see about getting us a different room?”

“No,” David sighs, resigned to his fate. “I don’t want to give her the satisfaction.”

“You’re sure?”

He's not, but he also doesn't want to risk ending up in a room with something living in the coffee maker. 

“Hey, for all she knows, mirrors are my kink.”

The suggestion appears to pique Patrick’s interest. He reaches out to David, his hands immediately finding their way under his sweater and onto the soft plane of his abdomen. “Is it?”

“God no. I don’t need to see that much of my body, thank you very much.”

Patrick frowns a little at his objection. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, pushing David’s sweater up until he has no choice but to allow him to take it off completely. “I happen to be a pretty big fan of your body.”

Patrick’s hands skate upwards through his chest hair, and his eyes drift closed under the touch of his fingers. He’s never been overly fond of how hairy he is, but after the waxing trend of the early two thousands died down (thank God for small favors), he’d come to embrace his chest hair as a permanent feature. He’s always going to be more Zorba the Greek than Greek god, but if it means more time spent with Patrick’s hands on him, then he isn’t going to complain.

Patrick’s lips brush against his own, drawing him down. There is heat in the kiss, but no frantic sense of urgency. It’s a greeting, and an invitation.

David feels the hands slip away and reappear at the button of his jeans. Patrick has them down in one smooth motion and before David can even process what’s happening, he finds himself down to his underwear whereas Patrick hasn’t even taken off his shoes yet.

A few questions come to mind. Such as:

_Why am I naked?_

_Why aren’t you naked?_

_Does this mean we’re not getting lunch?_

_Did you bring your own lube or do I need to pause to go get my suitcase out of the car?_

None of these questions actually make it past his lips as he’s quickly distracted by Patrick turning them both around and pushing him back on the bed, where he’s greeted by his own reflection in the mirror. He tries to push up to his elbows so he can see Patrick instead only to have a firm hand to press down on his chest and hold him in place. Patrick appears above him, his tongue slipping its way into David’s mouth before he can speak. 

His mouth traces its way down to David’s ear, along his jaw, and onto the sensitive flesh of his neck. The sensation of teeth grazing against his skin causes his hips to buck, and even through Patrick’s jeans he can feel just how hard he is. 

All of this would be damn near perfection if he didn’t keep catching glimpses of himself in the mirror. He tries everything: keeping his eyes closed, looking from side to side, trying to focus only at Patrick instead. But there really is something hardwired into the human brain that draws a person to their own reflection. Even chimps will stare at themselves if given a mirror. And now he’s thinking about chimps while Patrick’s lips are wrapped around his nipple, a fact that Stevie would probably find fucking _hilarious_.

“David?” Patrick looks up at him from halfway down his body.

“Hmm?” 

“I’m kind of getting the feeling I don’t have your full attention here.”

“Sorry.” He tries to clear all thoughts of monkeys and mirrors and front desk clerks with too much time on their hands from his mind. “I’m good.”

Patrick hesitates briefly, but then decides to take him at his word and returns his attention, and his mouth, to David’s chest. His tongue charts a course down to the jut of his hip, a sensation that comes _this_ close to tickling him, but also sends little jolts of electricity straight to his cock.

David is determined to keep his eyes closed to spare himself from any distractions, but when he feels Patrick tug at the waist of his underwear he finally opens his eyes and taps him on the shoulder to get his attention. 

“Not that I’m not enjoying this, but is there a reason I’m the only one with their clothes off?”

“As a matter of fact there is,” Patrick replies as he slides down David’s boxer briefs, freeing his erection, red and swollen and already leaking. One damn hickey on his hip bone and it feels like a stiff breeze would be enough to make him come. What are _‘Problems I Never Expected to Have in my Mid-Thirties_ ’ for two hundred Alex?

Patrick plants a lazy kiss on the inside of one knee, and then the other. “See I have this plan, and it’s all sort of based around you being naked and me keeping my clothes on.”

David pushes himself up on his elbows to see him better. “I don’t know how I feel about that.” 

“Well, I say ‘plan’, but it’s really just me giving you a blowjob and taking you out for lunch.” David can feel his jaw go slack and Patrick’s face breaks into a grin. “I didn’t think you’d object.”

“I...well - no. Not when you put it like that. I still don’t see why your clothes have to stay on for that to happen.”

Patrick rests his head against David’s thigh, settling against his body with a kind of familiarity that would have terrified him not long ago. Now he wouldn’t mind if he stayed there forever. 

“Because I know you,” Patrick explains. “I get naked and you’re going to want to return the favor and then we’ll never make it out of this room.”

David reaches down and runs his fingers through Patrick’s curls, enjoying how he leans into his touch. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Patrick drops another set of kisses farther up his thigh. “No,” he murmurs into the soft flesh. “But I like it when you let me do things for you.”

David wants to point out that he’s actually doing something _to_ him, but in the next moment Patrick’s breath is hot against the juncture of his leg and pelvis and the time for getting picky about his wording goes out the window. Patrick leans forward, wraps his hand around the base of David’s cock, and sinks his mouth down over the head in one fluid motion.

David lets out a gasp and falls back down on the bed. He feels Patrick’s lips slide down until they meet his fist, then withdraw, allowing his tongue to slip almost carelessly over his slit as he does. 

“ _Jesus Christ_ ,” David groans. His words must allow Patrick to be a little more brave, because the next time he takes David down, his hand falls away and he keeps moving until David’s cock bumps the back of his throat. It’s more successful than the first time he ever attempted that move, but he doesn’t push himself any further than that. 

David glances down to find Patrick staring back at him, trying and failing not to look too proud of himself. 

“Someone’s been practicing.”

Patrick shrugs. “Just doing a lot of reading mostly. It was either this or learning how to knit.”

“God, I love it when you talk dirty to me.” David starts to laugh at his own joke, but it turns into a whimper as Patrick is on him again and all the air rushes out of his lungs.

He collapses back again, but this time his eyes fall open when he hits the bed. The view that greets him is that of his own body, naked and spread, with Patrick kneeling between his legs like a man at prayer. 

He can see his hands digging into his thighs, pushing them open to better slot his body between them. He watches his head bob up and down, the sight of which his brain connects to the slick sensation of his mouth swallowing and retreating along his shaft. When one of his hands disappears from his thigh, David doesn’t have to wonder where it went because in the next moment it takes hold of his balls and squeezes them lightly.

Maybe he doesn’t hate the mirror so much after all.

He can hear the whines coming from his own mouth, thin and desperate, and his brain can’t decide which sense to focus on: the sight of Patrick in the mirror or the feel of his hands and mouth. It’s the combination of the two that drive David to the edge so quickly. He grabs handfuls of the bedspread into his fists and tries desperately not to thrust up into Patrick’s mouth.

“I’m close Patrick,” he ekes out. “ _Fuck I’m so close_. Please….don’t…”

But he’s already coming, and Patrick doesn’t break his rhythm, swallowing hard as his head continues to slide up and down David’s cock. It’s only after David begins to twitch and jolt at the point of overwhelming sensitivity that he finally pulls away, wiping his lips quickly against the back of his hand. 

“Did you actually think I was going to stop?” Patrick asks breathlessly.

David tries to lean up, but finds his arms are particularly unresponsive. “I cannot be held accountable for anything I say when I’m about to come. It’s a rule.”

Patrick pulls himself off the floor and flops down on the bed beside him. “For everyone or just for you?”

“Everyone,” says David. It’s a joke, except that it’s not. “Seriously, you could start reciting the Lord’s prayer before you come, I’d take it as a compliment.”

“I’ll remember that for next time.”

David rolls onto his side and palms Patrick’s erection through his jeans. “Speaking of next time…”

“Nope.” Patrick takes hold of his wrist and pulls it away. “We’re only halfway through my plan.”

David pouts a little, still gazing down at where Patrick’s cock strains against the denim fabric. “There’s no room for improvising in this plan?

His stomach chooses that very inopportune moment to let out a deep and resonant grumble. Patrick looks particularly smug as he tosses David his pants.

“Apparently not.”

**

The waitress who seats them is pretty, in a very wholesome, ‘I own more than one John Mayer album’ kind of way. David doesn’t even notice the size of the menus she’d handed them until she’s already walking away.

“Good lord,” he remarks as he unfolds the pages, then unfolds them again.

Patrick, who doesn’t even bother to open his own menu, watches David struggle to wrangle it into a readable position. “You alright there?”

David stares down at the menu with a mixture of both awe and mild disgust. “Did James Joyce write this thing?”

“This is pretty much the only restaurant in town, so they try to offer a little bit of everything. It’s nice, in theory.”

“Yeah that’s not really the first word that comes to mind when I see lasagna and pad thai listed next to each other.”

“Which is why I stick to their burgers and sandwiches. Anything where half the ingredients are bread.”

David finally gives up and forces the menu closed. “I can live with a burger. What do you mean ‘pretty much’?”

“There’s a bar a couple miles outside of town, The Wobbly Elm. They serve a little food there. Nachos, wings - your basic drunk munchies.”

He considers texting Alexis and telling her she won't have to go hunting for a bar after all, but decides against it. Anything to keep her occupied while he's with Patrick. 

“So I take it you do a fair amount of cooking for yourself?”

Patrick drums his finger on the table, looking a little self conscious. “Not as much as I should,” he admits. “But the general store doesn’t exactly have a spectacular selection either, so this place gets most of my business.”

“That’s a lot of burgers,” David points out. He doesn’t mean it to sound judgmental, given that he can’t cook for shit himself, but at least New York has more than one restaurant to choose from on DoorDash.

Patrick shrugs, not taking any offense. “I know the game is crooked, but it’s the only game in town.” 

David assumes he’s quoting from a movie, but before he can can where it’s from their waitress reappears with a pad and pencil clutched in her hands.

“Ready to order?” she asks brightly.

“Two burgers, medium rare please,” says Patrick. “Fries for me, onion rings for David.”

She reaches out and puts an overly familiar hand on David's forearm. 

“Aww, David. That’s a good name.”

The compliment throws him a little, if only because it’s one he’s never gotten before. There’s practically nothing unique about his name. In fact, he’d spent most of his school years going by his full name in order to distinguish himself from the three other Davids in his grade.

“Umm...thank you?”

“My brother’s favorite parole office was named David. We used to have him over for Christmas dinner, even after my brother went back to jail. He made dynamite mashed potatoes”

There’s a disconnect between how genuinely horrifying her words are and the cheerful expression on her face; he assumes she has to be fucking with him. He steals a glance at Patrick who to his surprise gives a quick little shake of his head. “Wow. That’s, uh….that’s a really _lovely_ thing for you to say.”

She smiles sweetly, politely ignoring the hesitation in his voice, and scoops their menus off the table. “I’ll get those orders in and bring by some waters for the two of you. “

“So that was Twyla,” Patrick explains as she walks away. “And that is probably the nicest story you will ever hear about her family.” 

“She is in way too good of a mood to be working here.” He actually thinks she’s in too good of a mood for existence in general, but that probably has more to do with his outlook on life than hers. 

“It’s not so bad,” Patrick says thoughtfully. “She takes care of her regulars, remembers all their birthdays, asks after their kids. And they all treat her right in return.”

“No one is that happy living off tips.”

“I’m not talking about tips.” He sees David’s confused expression and he points out an older man sitting at the counter with a weathered face but young eyes and a broad smile. “Bob over there gives her free oil changes and tuneups whenever she needs it.” Next he gestures to a small, surly looking woman with closely cropped hair sitting next to Bob. “And Ronnie helped rebuild her porch roof after a heavy snowfall brought it down last November. Only let her pay for materials, wouldn’t take a penny for her time.”

David suddenly feels like he is in a foreign country; one where he almost - but not quite - speaks the same language as the locals.

One thing he’d always loved most about New York was New Yorkers. They were a no nonsense, no small talk, no bull shit kind of people, and they all seemed to run on the same fuel: overpriced coffee and a hatred for tourists. When he was younger, fresh out of college and grinding away at the art scene, it had been the perfect place for him. He’d thrived in that kind of fast paced, keyed up environment. For someone who lived with near constant low grade anxiety, it made a twisted sort of sense to live in a place where the energy around him matched the energy inside of him.

But somewhere along the line, though he couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment, the shine had come off the apple. The idea of going out, even for dinner and a drink, exhausted him. To live in New York meant to always be _on._ His morning commute was either a subway car packed with too many people and too many smells, or a ride in the back of a cab where he would have try his best to ignore the stain on the seat next to him or the fact that the face on the cab’s license was so faded there was no way to tell if it was the same person driving the car. New York City cab rides were where all the childhood lessons about stranger danger came to die.

He didn’t have a porch roof to worry about, but if anything did go wrong with his apartment he would call the building super, and within twenty four hours there would be a total stranger in his kitchen fixing his faucet or garbage disposal or any of the other hundred things in his home that he had no idea how to take care of himself. It was convenient, and entirely impersonal. The former he didn’t mind so much. But sitting here, in the middle of a restaurant where literally every patron is on a first name basis with one another, where the person sipping their coffee two seats down from you is the same one who helped you renovate your kitchen, or filed your taxes, or sold you your car - it made him wonder why he’d ever put such a premium on the latter.

“David?”

He hears Patrick saying his name, and judging from the tone it’s not the first time he’s had to do it.

“Hmm?”

“I think I lost you there for a second.” He looks at him curiously, then reaches across the table to give his hand a squeeze.

“Sorry,” he says, looping his fingers through Patrick’s. “Zoned out.”

Patrick looks like he’s about to ask him something, presumably what it was that had caught his attention, but is interrupted by Twyla dropping off their burgers. David’s plate is piled high with onion rings, still glistening with oil from the deep fryer. He hears his mother’s voice in a distant part of his brain.

_A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips_ , it sings.

He grabs the largest ring in the pile, pops it in his mouth, and chews until the voice shuts up.

**

_Panburger Helper_

_Is This Seriously Not Butter?_

_Prangles_

_Skiffy Peanut Butter_

Patrick wasn’t lying when he’d said the selection at the general store was ‘less than spectacular’. More than that, it was downright alarming. Not only were the generic names hilariously bordering on copyright infringement, some of them actually made David question whether their contents met the legal definition of food.

“I can see why you stick to the cafe,” David says, placing a box of Cocoa Poofs Cereal back on the shelf.

Patrick grabs a bottle of red wine to put in his basket, then stares at the display for a moment before reconsidering and adding a bottle of white wine as well. “If I were less lazy I could just make the drive to the Loblaws in Elmdale.”

“Choosing a five minute walk over an hour long round trip for a box of pasta does not make you lazy,” David says as he eyes the candy section with disdain.

Patrick pulls a bright yellow box off the wall with a flourish. “Why drive all the way to Elmdale for pasta when I could just pup in here for a box of ‘Noodles n’ Stuf’?” 

“n’ Stuf? With one ‘f’?”

“Covers all manner of sin, don’t it?”

David peeks in the basket with a growing sense of unease. 

“Are we sure that’s wine in your basket and not drain cleaner?”

Patrick double checks the bottle to humor him. “This definitely contains alcohol, but I make no promises as to whether anything in this bottle ever came into contact with a grape.”

They wander up to the register, David tossing in a pack of gum that he feels is relatively safe along them way. “I don’t get it, I must have driven past five different wineries on my way into town.”

“Yup. Most of them aren’t half bad.”

“Most?”

“Well I guess it depends on how you feel about the concept of peach wine.”

“Oooh, hard pass.”

“Hence why I said most. Anyway, most of them only sell their wines on site. A few set up farm stands in the summer for the tourists driving up on their way to the lake.”

David looks around at the store again. While the products certainly leave a lot to be desired, the location itself isn’t half bad, both in terms of its proximity to the wineries and its place in the center of town. 

“What a waste,” he remarks, too quiet for Patrick to hear. 

**

They’re walking back to Patrick's car when David asks him what happened to the grand tour he was offered. 

“You kind of just had it,” Patrick says, tossing their groceries in the trunk. He points to the junction that contains Bob’s garage on one corner and the cafe on the other. “That intersection is basically the closest thing we have to a downtown.”

“Seriously? What about the rest of these streets?”

“Houses mostly. A few people run business out of them, like Ray and the local vet - but everything else you either have to go to Elmdale or Bracebridge for.”

David slides into the passenger seat, still regarding the few businesses he can see carefully. “So you’re all just stuck in some weird pastoral limbo out here?”

“I guess? I don’t know, most people don’t seem to mind. They probably think it’s a fair trade for the peace and quiet.”

“Mmm,” David hums, only half listening.

They drive in silence for a few minutes, passing by a seemingly unending stream of pastures and farmland, broken up by the occasional home or barn. 

“Why are you so interested?” Patrick asks, jolting David from his thoughts.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just...I know we’re supposed to being hammering things out this weekend - ”

“Interesting choice of words.”

Patrick rolls his eyes but otherwise ignores the joke. “I mean we were going to talk about what this whole long distance thing could look like for us. And don’t get me wrong, I appreciate you pretending to give this town some consideration, but you should know I really don’t expect you to pack your bags and leave New York for a place like this.”

He knows he’s going to have to tell him sooner or later. He’d just really been hoping for later.

Christ, where to start?

“Umm...about that,” he begins, rather ineloquently.

“What?”

“I, uh...I have some good news and some...neutral news? I honestly don’t know what to call it yet, I only found out about it last night.”

He sees Patrick’s brows knit together in confusion. “Alright, well as of now it all just sounds vaguely ominous, so why don’t you go ahead and tell me what’s going on?”

David takes a deep breath and wishes, not for the first time, that Patrick has just let him take his clothes off earlier. “Okay, so good news first: my friend who owns the gallery I'm showing at in Toronto made me an offer yesterday. He wants me to fill in for him for the next six months while he’s on paternity leave.”

Patrick’s face lights up and he steals a look at David before refocusing on the road. “Holy shit! That’s amazing. I mean...if that’s something you’re interested in, obviously. But that could be good right? You’d only be an hour away from Schitt’s Creek if you don’t hit traffic.”

He’s bordering on rambling, like a kid who’s just been told he’s going to Disney World and is already trying to decide which rides he wants to go on first. It’s in that moment that David realizes he can’t go back to New York. This isn’t the first time he’d had the thought, but it is the first time he’s made the choice not to ignore it. It boils down to two simple truths: he needs Patrick in his life and Patrick would never be happy in a big city. Thus, his life can’t stay in New York.

There’s part of him that suspects that if they actually pulled off the long distance thing (the _real_ long distance, with David in the US and Patrick in Canada) that maybe Patrick would be willing to give New York a try. He might even trick himself into believing he enjoys it for a while, like the time David pretended to enjoy the music of Phish for a whole month when he fell for a guy whose entire personality was based around the fact that he took psychedelics. 

But it wouldn’t last. Patrick is a romantic at heart, and David knows from experience how thin the romance of living in the big city becomes once it meets the reality of it. It had taken about ten years for it to happen to him, and that was with him _wanting_ to love it. Patrick, on the other hand, found romance in the everyday idiosyncrasies of the small town. The waitress who knows what it means when you ask for your ‘usual’. The librarian who set aside a copy of your favorite author’s new book. The mechanic who knows why your transmission is making that funny noise, because they’re the one who fixed it the last time it happened. It would be a sin for David to ask him to give that up. 

David spots a small dirt service road coming up and points to it. “Can you actually pull over for a minute?” 

Patrick obliges and puts the car in park. The excitement in his face has been replaced with concern. “What’s up? Is your friend’s offer...I mean - is that not something you’re interested in? Because I get it. Six months would be a long time to leave your own gallery behind, plus your apartment, your friends.”

David dismisses his concerns with a wave of his hand. “No, it’s not that. I told him I’d think about it, but I knew pretty much as soon as he asked that I’d do it.”

“Really?” 

Something about the uninhibited joy in his voice makes David’s heart feel like it could burst from his chest. If only this was where the conversation ended.

“There’s something else I need to tell you.” He pauses, hating how amplified his voice sounds in the small space of the car. “And you’re probably going to think I’m making up this next part, which would be _totally_ fair, because I barely believed it myself and - ”

“David?”

“Yeah?”

“Take a breath.” He does, slowly. “Good. Now talk to me.”

“Right. Okay. Fuck this is weird...so you know the town you live in?”

He doesn’t blame Patrick for looking at him like he’s crazy. It’s like asking someone if they know their own name, or what size shoe they wear.

“Is that a trick question?”

“God I wish.” He taps his thumb back and forth along each of the rings on his right hand, a nervous tick he developed shortly after buying them. “So it sort of turns out, through a weird series of events, that I, umm...own it?”

The silence that follows seems to last for a small eternity, but is in fact probably closer to ten seconds. David spends most of it still staring down at his rings, though he can feel Patrick’s eyes on him from only a foot and a half away. When he does finally force himself to look up, he finds Patrick wearing a confused half smile, like he’s still waiting for the punchline. When it doesn’t come, the smile falters.

“You what?”

“I own Schitt’s Creek.”

Patrick shakes his head like he’s clearly mishearing him. “Sorry, it just...it sounded like...you said you own it?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t - I mean, you _can’t_. You can’t own a town.”

“That’s what I said.”

“When?”

“When what?”

“When did you say that?”

“Oh, right, probably should’ve started there to begin with.” He laughs awkwardly with the misguided hope that Patrick might join in, but he just sits there, waiting for an explanation. “I had dinner with my family last night, and the name of the town kind of came up in conversation.” He decides to leave out the part where Alexis basically forced him to tell his parents where he was coming, bringing this all to light and royally fucking with both his head and his plans for the weekend. “Apparently when I was like eight years old, we passed through here on a road trip and I thought the name was fucking hilarious, because...you know, _I was eight_. Anyway, my dad decided me finding it funny was a good enough reason to buy the town for me."

He watches as Patrick attempts to process what he just said. The look of utter disbelief is about what he’d expected it to be, but when Patrick starts to laugh - a weird, strangled sounding giggle that David’s never heard from him before - he starts to get concerned.

“What’s so funny?”

Patrick is laughing harder now, throwing his head back against the headrest and clutching his stomach. “When I,” he starts, before stopping to gasp for breath. He has to force the words out over his own laughter. “When I...oh shit...when I was eight...my dad...my dad…”

“What?” David asks, now at a complete loss for what’s going on in Patrick’s head. “What did your dad do?” When Patrick can only shake his head in response, David starts to get _really_ worried. “Are you okay? Because if you need a pill they’re all in my suitcase back at the hotel.”

“ _He bought me a bike_ ,” Patrick finally manages to choke out before dissolving into another peel of giggles.

It doesn’t immediately register for David that Patrick isn’t having a breakdown. He was prepared for a minor breakdown. He was prepared for confused, annoyed, angry. What he wasn’t prepared for was for Patrick to find the whole thing downright hilarious.

“I’m glad you find this amusing,” David says, now starting to resent the amount of anxiety he’d dedicated to this big reveal.

Patrick wipes away the tears that have started to slip down his face, which has flushed to a lovely shade of crimson. “I’m sorry David, I really am, but you have to appreciate how absolutely bananas that story is.”

“Oh I’m fully aware, thank you.” He crosses his arms and stares out the window at a small grouping of cows huddled together in the field next to the car.

Patrick nudges his arm until he turns around again. He’s not laughing anymore. “Did you think I was going to be mad?”

“I don’t know!” David exclaims, throwing his hands up. “You get weird when I don’t let you pay for meals, I had no idea how admitting I own the entire town you live in was going to land.”

Patrick has the decency to look mildly chagrined by his reaction. “I appreciate the concern, misplaced though it may have been.”

“It really doesn’t bother you?”

“I mean I’m not going to pretend like it’s not fucking weird to have my boyfriend own the town I live in, but it’s not like it really changes anything for us.”

“I’m sorry...what did you say?”

Patrick’s lips press into a tight line, like he can retroactively hold in the words he’d already spoken. “Nothing,” he says with feigned nonchalance. “Just that it’s really no big deal for me. It’s...you know. It’s whatever.”

“So not only is that not what you said, but that’s not even the part I was referring to.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about you saying something about your _boyfriend_ owning the town you live in. Or did I mishear you?”

“Oh...that.” A blush creeps up Patrick’s neck and onto his cheeks. His mouth twists to the side in a poor attempt to hide a smile. “And how would you feel about that, if that was what I said?”

“About owning my boyfriend’s town? I don’t know, apparently I got all worked up about it for nothing.” Unlike Patrick, he makes no effort to hide his smile, instead allowing it to consume his whole face.

Patrick reaches out to slip a hand behind David’s neck and pull him into a kiss. David hums softly, the sound pulsing between them. It lasts forever and ends too soon, like most of their kisses do. 

Patrick rests his forehead against David, his eyes closed. “I’ve never had a boyfriend before. I didn’t know if there was some kind of etiquette to dropping the ‘b’ word into conversation.”

David leans back while his fingers continue to trace patterns along Patrick’s arms. “Oh did I not give you your copy of the handbook? There’s a whole chapter on it, right between the sections on how to sanitize a butt plug and what to do when a straight woman treats you like an accessory.”

David can sense the eye roll about three seconds before it actually happens. “Very funny.”

“Well apparently I’m a regular laugh riot today.”

“Want to go back to the motel and do boyfriend stuff to each other?”

“How is that different from the stuff we’ve already been doing to each other?”

“It’s not,” Patrick admits. “Though I think you don’t have to wait quite as long to get a snack after we finish.”

“Well I'm sold.” 

**

They spend the rest of the car ride back to the motel with David trying to answer Patrick’s questions about owning the town, with varying degrees of success. Things like:

_Do you have any power with the government?_ (Not that I know of.)

_Are you allowed to sell it?_ (I don’t see why not.)

_Do you actually want to do something with it?_ (I wouldn’t even know where to start.)

So maybe it isn't the most fruitful of conversations, but David is just relieved to be able to talk about it with Patrick. He finds that the idea of doing something with the town other than benignly existing as its owner is both more daunting and intriguing than he cares to admit.

They find the motel parking lot almost completely empty, save for Stevie’s shit box sedan and a silver pickup truck. No sign of David’s car, which means Alexis either managed to find that bar all on her own, or it’s at the bottom of a ditch somewhere. David, not wanting to start worrying too soon, tells himself that maybe it’s a shallow ditch, one that a tow truck could easily pull her out of.

They each grab a bag of groceries from the trunk, and as David slides in the key into the lock of his door, he can hear the phone ringing inside his room. He tries to open it faster, but only succeeds in dropping the bag he’s holding and sending a box of crackers tumbling out onto the sidewalk. By the time they manage to get into the room, the phone has fallen silent.

They haven’t had a chance to unpack anything before Patrick’s phone starts to buzz. As he pulls it out, David can see the caller ID is a picture of Stevie flipping off the camera. Patrick puts the call on speaker and drops it on the bed.

“Hey Stevie, what’s up?” He starts pulling bottles of water from the brown paper bag and loading them into the mini fridge.

Stevie’s voice comes through the speaker with a weird, tinny quality. “Hey, weird question for you - what’s your dad’s name?”

The two of them share a confused look, and Patrick stops unpacking entirely. “Clint,” he says, before adding, “Clinton Brewer, technically. Why?”

“And is he hot?”

“ _Excuse me_?”

“Your dad, is he hot?”

“Jesus, I don’t know.” Again he looks to David for help, but he has zero fucking clue what this could be about. “He’s handsome, I guess. Why are you asking me if my dad is hot?”

“Because I just checked in a silver fox by the name of Clint Brewer.”

“You...what?” David sees the color drain from his face.

“Yeah, uh, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m pretty sure your parents are in room three.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really sorry for the late posting. After five years of faithful service, my laptop died over the weekend, and I didn't feel comfortable borrowing my partner's work computer for the sake of writing smutty fanfic. 
> 
> I also want to say that we are finally nearing the end of this saga, only a couple more chapters to go. Thanks to everyone who's hung in there for this long, I hope I've made it worth it.


	24. Parents

Patrick has decided that if David asks him one more time if he’s okay, he might actually lose his mind.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Patrick forces himself to take a deep breath, not expecting to have his sanity tested so soon.

“David, my answer is the same as it was the last time you asked me, and it’s going to be the same the next time you ask me - I’m fine.” David nods but continues to eye him nervously. 

“Maybe it’s not them,” he suggests.

Patrick pulls back the curtain and takes another look at what is, presumably, his father’s truck in the parking lot.

“Maybe,” he says doubtfully. “But that definitely looks like his truck.”

David peeks over his shoulders and presses his hand to his mouth. For a moment Patrick can actually hear the number he’s doing on his own fingernails. “Are you positive it’s his?” he asks. “You didn’t even notice it when we first pulled in.”

“Because it’s a silver pickup in the middle of rural Ontario. It doesn’t exactly stand out.”

“So there is a chance it’s not his then.”

“If you ignore the fact that it belongs to a guy with my dad’s exact name and fitting his description then sure, there’s a chance.” 

David only ceases the assault on his nails because he needs his hand to dial Alexis again. He’s made three unsuccessful attempts so far, and David’s curses have grown more creative each time he gets sent to voicemail.

“You could actually try leaving a message for once,” Patrick suggests. He gets the impression that the Rose family’s preferred method of getting someone to return their calls is to simply wear them down, mostly because they all seem to ignore the first few attempts at contact out of habit. “She might actually listen to it.”

His suggestion turns out to be unnecessary as David’s face lights up. Even from halfway across the room, Patrick can hear the high pitch whine of Alexis’s voice coming through the speaker, though it's too far to make out what she’s saying.

“Fucking finally!” David shouts loud enough for Patrick’s ears to hurt on Alexis’s behalf. “Where are you?”

Patrick might not be able to hear Alexis’s response, but he can certainly see the eye roll it inspires in David. 

“Of course you did. Listen, you need to come back to the motel right now, it’s an emergency...what do you mean what kind of emergency? The kind where you do what I say because you supposedly came with me for moral support so I shouldn’t have to explain what kind of emergency...no I’m not being dramatic...look, you’re just going to have to dismount off of whatever townie you managed to - wait, hold on - ”

He finally notices Patrick waving his hand, trying to get his attention, and holds the phone away from his ear. “What is it?”

“I thought you were just calling to tell her what was going on, she really doesn’t need to come back here.”

“Yes, I promise you, she _really_ does. Do you want her showing up in the middle of meeting your parents?”

Honestly the idea doesn’t really phase Patrick. He likes Alexis - she’s funny, and a little mean, and not half the ditz she pretends to be. In fact, most of the things he likes about her are things she has in common with David, a comparison he thinks they would both strongly object to out of principle, which would only prove his point further. Sure, he hadn’t exactly pictured her being involved in his coming out to his parents in any capacity, but he also hadn’t pictured coming out to them in a roadside motel either. 

How does the old saying go? _If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans._

He waves David off, leaving the decision up to him. David hesitates for a moment, before heaving a sigh and pressing the phone to his ear again. 

“Alexis? Yeah, scratch that bit about coming back here, just stay wherever you are...no, I mean you don’t have to literally stay wherever you are, just don’t come back to the motel anytime soon, maybe not till tomorrow if you can swing it...it’s complicated and I promise I’ll explain later, but can you just do this for me? It’s not like you wanted to spend the night here anyway, the bath towels are probably haunted.”

He’s nodding slowly, which Patrick assumes is a good sign.

“Yes...yes, I swear to God...I will...okay, bye.”

“Everything good?” asks Patrick. 

David wiggles a hand back and forth. “Good-ish. She’s pissed she left her makeup bag here, but I was right about her having someplace better to spend the night.”

“That sure didn’t take her long.”

“It never does,” David says dryly.

Patrick takes one last look at the parking lot before allowing the curtain to drop back into place and taking a seat at the end of the bed. The sheets are still a mess from their earlier encounter; logically he knows that was only about three hours ago but it feels closer to three years. He watches David pace the room a few times before he grabs him by the hand and pulls him down next to him. He can see their reflection in the glass of the old TV set, a real life version of The Odd Couple - one where the gay innuendo isn’t just subtext. 

The outfit David is wearing probably costs a small fortune, down to the artfully torn jeans. The only pairs of jeans Patrick has ever owned with holes in them now existed in the form of a patchwork quilt at his parents’ house. Marcy Brewer was both an avid seamstress and a woman with strong opinions about allowing her child to walk around with torn clothing, artfully done or otherwise. 

But they work. Maybe it’s because opposites really do attract, or maybe it’s just proof that God has a weird sense of humor, but they work. And if that really is his parents a few rooms down, then he owes it to David to explain that to them. 

“I have an idea,” David says suddenly. 

"Oh?”

“Yeah - I’ll call Alexis again and have her park my car out back, then we sneak you out through the bathroom window.”

“David, I’m not sneaking out through that window.”

“If you’re worried about your thighs fitting, I totally get it, but if we rub some shampoo around the edges first then I think we can make it work.”

“That’s not why I’m not - wait, what’s wrong with my thighs?” 

David stares at him blankly, though Patrick would bet dollars to donuts that inside he’s trying to find a way to walk back that last attempt at reassurance. 

“In the words of Ru Paul - ”

“Okay I’m going to stop you right there,” Patrick interrupts. “I just meant that I’m not running away, period. The objection wasn’t escape route specific.”

“Oh,” says David, with equal measures of confusion and surprise. “Umm...okay then. So you’re going to…”

“Talk to them? Yeah, given that they drove fourteen hours to see me, I think I owe them that.”

“Right, yes, of course.” It’s clear that he’s making an effort to sound calm and collected, but the rapid bounce of his right leg betrays his nerves. Patrick reaches over and places a hand on his knee until it stills.

“You okay?” he asks gently.

“I’m fine,” David replies a little too quickly. “I just thought I’d do you a favor and have a panic attack on your behalf.”

“That’s very generous of you.”

“Happy to help,” he says with a tight little laugh.

“David?”

“Hmm?”

“Everything is going to be fine.”

David, who up until that point seemed to be weirdly focused on the pattern of the carpet, snaps out of his panic induced stupor and turns his gaze to Patrick. “Shouldn’t I be saying that to you? You seem...I don’t know...weirdly chill right now.”

It’s not an unfair observation. As a matter of fact, ever since the call with Stevie had ended, Patrick has been waiting patiently for the panic to set in. He’s pictured coming out to his parents about a million or so times in the past four months. Hell, he’d been ready to actually pull the trigger on it last weekend. An attempt that was thwarted, as Terry had so kindly pointed out, by his own inability to call ahead and make sure his parents were actually home. 

Maybe that’s why he’s so calm now. After all this time, all this build up, all the imagined and re-imagined conversations he’d had in his head, there is some part of him - a part that is tired of waiting and tired of having to listen to his nerves for so long - that’s pushed its way to front of the line with one simple question:

_Can we just get this the fuck over already?_

There's also no denying it helps that he’d already gotten to tell Rachel. Even though he’d been quick to correct her when she claimed she was his ‘trial run’, he had to acknowledge there was some truth to it. It hadn’t gone perfectly - he didn’t even know what a perfect coming out would look like ( _maybe fireworks and a parade?_ ) - but it had proven something important: reality wasn’t half as scary as his own imagination. Awkward? Yes. Painful? A little. But it hadn’t killed him. The world - or rather, his world - hadn’t come crashing down around him. He was still here - two arms, two legs, a brain, and a beating heart. 

What he hadn’t realized until he was on the highway back to Schitt’s Creek was that all of that would have still been true even if Rachel _hadn’t_ taken it well. He would still be headed back to a job he enjoyed and a room at Ray’s that he tolerated. He would still go out for beers with Stevie every Friday when she got off work. He would listen to her bitch about the days of never having any customers, and also bitch about the days when she did. He would still be in this room, with David, trying to figure out how they want to make this whole thing work.

He’d also realized how lucky he was to be in that position. Not everyone gets to come out with a near-guarantee that life as they know it will remain intact afterwards. It was a privilege, and a rare one at that, to know he’d still be standing at the end of it. 

It didn’t mean it wasn’t scary. Even now, as David questions how the hell he can appear so calm while being sat on a set of red satin sheets next to his boyfriend, only five rooms down from his parents, he’s still a little scared. But that’s okay. It’s scary because it’s important. Important to him, important to his relationship with David, important to his relationship with his parents. He has to be okay with being scared, because Terry was right - the best things in life are worth the trouble.

“I have something to tell you,” Patrick says. “Sort of a confession, actually.”

David turns his body to face him on the bed, the concern on his face taking on a different hue.

“Last week, when I said I had to get back to help Stevie with some renovations - I lied. I, uh...I went home.”

“Home?” He realizes David probably thinks he means Schitt’s Creek. 

“Where I grew up,” he clarifies. “I went to see Rachel.”

“Rach - ” David doesn’t get the whole name out before things start clicking into place for him. His face shifts from confusion to some version of neutrality that Patrick can see takes some effort for him to maintain. “You went to see your ex-fiancee.”

“I went to come out to my ex-fiancee," he corrects him. 

“Oh my God!” David’s eyes go wide and he shoots off the bed so fast he accidentally clips the TV stand. It rebounds off the wall and rocks precariously for a moment before settling back into place, not that David even notices. “You didn’t tell me! Why didn’t you tell me? How did it go? Was she okay? Are _you_ okay?”

Patrick watches David’s flurry of panic with a mixture of bemusement and affection. It’s the first time he’s ever had someone gesticulate so aggressively on his behalf. He almost wishes he could have taped it so he could immediately play it back for David to help answer the question ‘ _why didn’t you tell me?_.

“Tell you what, I’ll answer all of those questions if you sit back down and stop trying to give yourself a heart attack.” He pats the empty space next to him until David relents and takes a seat, though his leg immediately goes back to bouncing a mile a minute.

“First off, it went fine. Better than fine, actually. Rachel was surprisingly supportive.”

“Really?” David is looking at him like he just claimed all four of the original Beatles were getting back together.

“Really,” he insists. “I mean, she wasn’t thrilled, obviously. Given the choice she probably would’ve preferred I figured it out a lot sooner, which makes two of us. But no, she took it well.”

“That’s...amazing,” David says, his leg ceasing its bouncing. 

“It is. _She_ is.”

“I’m guessing you were going to tell your parents too?”

“That was the plan,” Patrick sighs. “Except my dad had to go and talk my mom into a camping trip up north for the weekend.”

“In this weather?” David looks horrified by the thought, though Patrick doubts he’d be any keener on the idea of camping in the middle of summer, cabin or no cabin.

“I use the term camping loosely,” he assures him. “More like my mum curled up with a book and my dad went fishing. Nobody slept on the ground.”

“So - wait. I still don’t get why you didn’t tell me you were going to talk to Rachel. Did you think I would be jealous? Because look, I know I can be a petty asshole about a lot of things, but talking to your ex-girlfriend is so not one of them.”

Patrick slips a hand into David’s, enjoying the warmth that radiates through his rings as they brush against his fingers. He loves David’s hands, and not just because they’re attached to the rest of them. They are soft but strong, with long delicate fingers that always seem to know how to touch him sometimes in ways that make him go weak and in others that help hold him up.

“I don’t think you’re petty,” he says quietly.

“Mmm, you should try telling that to Alexis’s American Girl collection.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because they’re at the bottom of a lake.” Patrick doesn’t even get the chance to ask what they’re doing there before David’s face takes on the same pinched expression it always does when he feels like he’s being judged. “She scratched my original pressing of Mariah Carey’s self titled debut album, and tried to sneak it back in my room without telling me. Actions have consequences”

“Wait, Mariah Carey’s first album was called _Mariah Carey_?” Patrick asks, distracted by the question of how much ego it could take to pull something like that off.

“Yes it was. I said it was petty - not that I regretted it.” 

“Well, for the record, that’s not why I didn’t tell you I was going. Kind of the opposite actually.”

David shakes his head. "I don't get it."

“I didn’t want you to worry that I was only doing it because of you, and not because I was ready for it. I didn’t like the idea of you sitting hundreds of miles away, feeling all nervous for me, just waiting for me to call and tell you how it went.”

David’s expression softens, though there’s still a small pout to his lips. “I’m always nervous,” he says matter-of-factly. “I could have added it to the load.”

If ever pressed, Patrick would probably have to say that this was the moment he knew he was going to keep David, for as long as he possibly could. The thought doesn’t arrive in such concrete terms of weddings and marriage and side by side burial plots - those would come with time - but in a way that’s harder to describe because he’s never actually felt it before. It’s as though he owns a piece of David, and David owns a piece of him. The trade was made without either of them really knowing it had happened until it was already done, and now it can’t be undone. It’s already been, as David so eloquently put it, added to the load. He could never take his piece back because it belongs with David, fits with him, like a sweater someone borrowed and tried to return having stretched it out. Better to let him keep it, since it’ll never fit the same anyway.

Even though they’ve recently hit a solid stride in terms of being open with their feelings, something in Patrick’s gut tells him that it’s probably a little too soon to dump that amount of emotional honesty at David’s feet. He only just got him to stop bouncing his leg after all.

So instead Patrick simply slides a little closer to him, and leans his head on his shoulder. “I know you could have.”

He feels David press a kiss to the top of his head, and wonders why the hell he ever thought he needed to do this without him.

**

It’s David who finally pushes for him to call his parents. “It’s either get them to meet you somewhere or have them turn up to an empty room at Ray’s.”

The thought of forcing his parents to have to politely extricate themselves from Ray's chatty clutches spurs him to make the call. His dad picks up on the first ring. 

"Patrick?" He sounds surprised to find Patrick calling him, which inspires a pang of guilt in his stomach about how rarely he's done it over the past year. The ghost of Terry's voice pickles in his mind.  
  


“Hey Dad, how are you?"

"Good. You've got good timing, I was actually just about to call you."

"Yeah, umm, about that, I have kind of a weird question to ask you, but is there any chance you and Mum are in Schitt’s Creek right now?”

He hears his dad sigh on the other end of the line, and his mother’s voice, soft and distant, asks who he’s talking to. “Terry told you didn’t she?”

“Actually no, weirder explanation than that. The girl who checked you in at the motel is a good friend of mine. I guess we look more alike than I thought, because as soon as she saw your name she figured out who you were and gave me a call.” It helps that this part isn’t really a lie, given how strange he already feels having to make this call from five rooms away with David watching him anxiously.

“Well so much for the surprise,” Clint says with a laugh. “Terry told us how we’d missed you last weekend and we wanted to return the favor after you drove all that way. We were going to head over to your place, are you around?”

“Uh, no, I’m not. I’m just on my way back from Elmdale." He wonders if his voice always sounds this strange when he's lying, or if it's just a cruel trick his mind is playing on him. "I had some errands to run, but I should be back in town in about half an hour. Any chance you’d want to go grab some dinner?”

There’s a shuffling noise on the other end of the line, and then his mother’s voice is in his ear. “Hi sweetie, that sounds lovely. What’d you have in mind?”

He spares them the explanation of there really only being one option to choose from, and tells them how to get to the cafe. He glances up to find that David is back to destroying his manicure once more. 

They agree to meet in forty five minutes, and Patrick is yanking David’s hand out of his mouth before he even presses end on the call.

“Dude, you have a problem.”

“More than one," David says flippantly. "This should be abundantly clear to you by now.”

“Think you can pull it together long enough to meet my parents?”

David lets out a sound halfway between a groan and wheeze. “I guess we’ll find out,” he says, though his tone is doubtful.

“Are you worried they aren’t going to like you?” Patrick asks gently.

“I should probably tell you now that, historically speaking, I don’t do well with parents. I don’t know what it is,” he insists when Patrick raises a concerned brow. “I’m a very easy sell in theory, but in person...I don’t know. It just goes off the rails.”

Patrick suspects he’s exaggerating. Truth be told he’s actually not that easy of a sell, but nor is he that hard to warm up to. “Well it’d be a pretty impressive feat to get my dad to not like you. The man makes friends with everyone, even Habs fans. He’s going to love you.”

David’s expression sours. “If even one percent of our relationship hinges on me understanding hockey references, he won’t.”

“It was just an example,” Patrick says, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “You don’t need to give a shit about hockey, you just need to give a shit about me.” There was probably a more romantic way he could have phrased that, but he thinks he got his message across.

David attempts a smile that betrays a lack of conviction in Patrick’s words, but a willingness to pretend they worked anyway. “I give lots of shits,” he says, reaching out a hand to tug at Patrick’s collar. He presses a hard kiss to his lips, and Patrick can practically feel the nerves buzzing behind it. “All the shits,” David adds when he finally pulls away.

**

They’re pulling up to the curb when something occurs to Patrick, something that might actually help him, considering what he’s about to do.

“You know, I don’t think you ever told me how you came out to your parents.”

David gives an almost bored shrug. “There’s not much to tell. I brought home this couple on my first winter break from college and basically just told my parents to deal with it.”

“Seriously?”

Another shrug. “I didn’t want to make a big thing of it.”

Something about his explanation doesn’t track. David lives for big things, dies for them. There’s no way he spent more time lecturing Patrick about his butter spreading habits then he did coming out to his parents. The doubt must be plain on his face because David glances over at him and sighs.

“It wasn’t like it was some massive revelation,” he says. “I spent most of junior high with a poster of Jason Priestley on my bedroom wall, and I had a brief crop top period in the summer of ‘97. Honestly, I think my dad was more surprised that one of the people I brought home was a woman than anything else.”

“Just your dad?”

“Oh please, Mum was in show business for years. Nothing phased her, and if it did she was a good enough actress to at least pretend it didn’t.”

“Maybe I should have practiced this on her first,” Patrick says, only half joking. With every story David tells him about his parents, he wants to meet them more. He knows David doesn’t have the closest relationship with them, but how bad could they be when they managed to create someone who means so much to him?

“You’d be better off practicing in front of a framed picture of the Queen of England,” David tells him. “You’ll end up with roughly the same level of emotional investment from either one. Why don’t you just go with whatever you told Rachel? It worked for her.”

“Eh, probably not a good idea. Most of it was a weird metaphor about cake that immediately got away from me. It was kind of a miracle that it worked at all.”

“Cake?”

“And pie. It sucked.”

“Then you just have to be straight with them.” He immediately winces at his own choices of words. “I mean...you know what I mean right?”

Patrick finds himself laughing in spite of the massive knot in his stomach. 

“Keep an eye on your phone,” Patrick tells him. They’d agreed that Patrick would go in and talk to them first, then shoot David a text to join them when they’re ready. “You’re sure you don’t just want to come in with me?”

“Not that I wouldn’t love to be there for you, but I can’t. Your parents deserve the chance to hear this from you. They don’t need a total stranger for an audience.”

Patrick knows he’s right, but he still can’t help but feel like David should be there. It’s like fate put them on the most unlikely path it could create for them, and yet they’ve all managed to find their way here, to the strange little town that he’s made his home, a home that apparently his boyfriend owns. It almost feels wrong for them to have come so far together only to have to take this next step apart.

“What if it doesn’t go well?” he asks, surprised to hear a small tremor in his own voice. “What if they don’t react the way I think they will?”

Something about the question seems to force David’s own anxieties away, as if there’s only enough room in the car for one of them to freak out at a time.

“Then I’ll be here,” he says, his voice a strong and steady counter to Patrick’s. “And we’ll figure it out together.”

**

It seems strange to already be back at the cafe. Lunch with David already feels like a distant memory, though Twyla is still behind the counter, and through the little kitchen window he can see the same fry cook who grilled him his burger earlier that day. If someone had told him the first time he stopped here for breakfast that this would be the place he would eventually come out to his parents, he would’ve assumed they were nuts. _God and plans_.

His mother is up and out of her seat as soon as he’s through the door, and his father is only seconds behind her. She hustles towards him, arms already out for a hug, when he’s overcome by a familiar and unsettling feeling that he first got when he came home from his freshman year at university - an undeniable awareness that his parents are aging. 

It’s not terribly obvious, probably the kind of thing he never would have noticed if he saw them every day - but it is there. It’s in the lines of her face, both the appearance of the new and the deepening of the old. It’s in her step and gait, just a touch slower than they used to be, and miles still from what they were when his mother used to get out on the ice with him, when dad was stuck at work and he needed someone to practice his passing with. 

It’s even more subtle with his father, who Marcy sometimes jokes has found the fountain of youth somewhere out in the bush and is keeping it entirely to himself. But over the years Patrick has noticed as the dark brown coloring in his father’s hair has given way to silver and gray, and is now starting to slip into white. Granted, it isn’t like they’re shuffling towards him with walkers and IV poles dragging behind them. They’re both still active and working, with retirement more than a few years off. And yet he still can’t shake the feeling that they are approaching that nebulous line in the sand at which parents stop 'getting older’ and just become ‘old’. 

There’s probably a not insubstantial amount of his own psychology buried beneath these observations. The guilt of lying to them coupled with the guilt of not seeing them for so long, topped with an irrational fear that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

_So you’re gay?_ the old familiar voice in his head taunts. _Big whoop. Now have you thought about your parents’ mortality lately?_

The voice falls silent as his mom reaches him and throws her arms around him in a tight hug. He catches a whiff of her perfume, Eternity, and suddenly he’s five years old again, sitting cross legged on the bathroom floor where he’d watch her get ready for work. One spritz to the wrist, and a dab just behind her ear, where he could smell it every time she scooped him up in her arms and his head came to a rest on her shoulder. 

“Oh Patrick,” she says into his arm, and he can hear the watery tremble in her voice. “It’s been too long.”

“I know,” he says, giving her one last squeeze before letting her go. “That’s my fault.”

She dismisses his attempt at taking responsibility with a little huff and a wave of her hand. He almost would have preferred a minor scolding instead. He turns around and straight into his father’s chest, and feels a set of heavy hands clap him warmly on the back. “There’s my boy.”

“Hey Dad.”

“How you been kid?”

“Not too bad. How was the drive out?”

“Good. Would’ve been better if we didn’t have to stop every half hour for your mom to pee.”

“I heard that,” Marcy says, dropping down into the booth. 

Whatever apology his dad is about to make is lost to the arrival of Twyla, who gives a Patrick an odd look, but makes no mention of the fact that he’d been here only a few hours ago, albeit with very different company. He watches as his mom vetoes his dad’s attempt to order a steak ( _don’t look at me like that, you already had a roast beef sandwich for lunch and you’re supposed to be watching your cholesterol_ ), and his dad begrudgingly agrees to order a turkey wrap instead. 

“I’m so sorry we missed you at home last weekend,” his mom says. “When Terry told us we’d missed you by just a few hours I almost called you and begged you to turn around.”

“Until I reminded her that you probably had work on Monday,” his dad adds. “Still had to damn near wrestle the phone out of her hand.’

“Oh you did not!”

“It’s my fault,” Patrick says. “I should’ve called ahead to make sure you were home. Though I’ve got to say, I didn’t think dad would ever manage to drag you up to the lake this early in the year.”

“I was bribed with the promise of a fully furnished cabin and a large fireplace,” she insists with a grin. His dad certainly doesn’t contradict her, just reaches out a hand to give a small squeeze to one of her own. Clint has always been the quieter of the two, usually happy to allow Marcy to make conversation for the both of them, with the exception of Leafs games where he’s had more than three beers before the end of the first period. Over the years Patrick has come to realize how much his dad manages to communicate without ever actually speaking. An affectionate hand on the shoulder, or a stern crossing of the arms could speak volumes for him. When he does open his mouth, it’s because he has something worth saying.

“Well I appreciate you making the drive. I’ll fly you out next time, save you some time.”

He sees an odd look pass between his parents, and his mother shifts a little in her seat.

“So you’ve really settled down here then?” she asks, her smile doing a poor job at hiding the discomfort behind it.

“Yeah, I guess I have.” He finds comfort in how easy he finds it to answer that question. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but I like it here. Good people, maybe a little eccentric - but good.”

“We noticed the town sign on our way in,” his dad says with a smile.

“You mean our biggest tourist attraction? Yeah, I could explain the story behind it but honestly it would just make it worse.”

Marcy looks like she’s barely heard a word he’s said, instead playing with the napkin in her lap, and it makes Patrick uneasy. 

“Everything alright Mum?”

She steals a glance at Clint, who gives a small shake of his head, and she sighs. He’d forgotten what terrible actors his parents are.

“You guys know I can see you right? Literally sitting right in front of you.”

“It’s just - ”

“Marce, don’t,” his father warns. 

“Well he asked.” She turns her attention back to Patrick, straightening up a little in her seat. “It’s just that when we spoke to Terry, she mentioned you’d been by to see Rachel.”

Shit. Shit, shit, _shit_. 

He knows where this is going.

“We thought that - ” She’s interrupted by a pointed cough from her husband. “Okay, fine, _I_ thought that maybe you two were trying to patch things up.”

“Mum…” he begins, not sure what to say next because this is decidedly _not_ how he wanted to segue into whole ‘surprise, I’m gay’ portion of the evening.

“I know, I know,” she says, not really knowing the half of it. “This wasn’t supposed to be like the other times, you were really done - ”

“It’s still like that,” Patrick interrupts. “Rachel and I - I mean, yeah we talked, and things are better between us now - ”

“So you made up up then?”

He bites back a groan; none of this is coming out the way he wants it to. “Kind of. Not the way you think.”

It feels like he’s caught in one of those terrible sitcom cliches, one where a girl walks in to find her boyfriend on top of another girl that he just happened to trip over. He yells after her ‘ _Wait - I can explain!_ ’, but she’s already gone before he can even get to his feet. Except in this case the girlfriend is his mother ( _eat your heart out Freud_ ), and she’s waiting patiently for his explanation. He’s the one who’s fucking up the script now, and all because he’s waiting for a better moment that might not ever come.

“There’s something I need to tell you guys. It’s...it’s actually what I came to see you about last weekend.”

He pauses, clears his throat, and tries to pretend like this won’t haunt him forever if it all goes terribly wrong.

“Umm...right. I, uh... I’m not really sure where to start.”

“You know you can tell us anything,” his mom says earnestly.

Clint places a gentle on her shoulder. “Honey, let's just let him talk.” He gives Patrick a small smile, who wonders if the understanding he sees in it is real or imagined.

“I know that, I do. It’s just...I guess this doesn’t really come naturally does it?” The question gets a blank stare from his parents, which he figures is a reasonable enough response to his rambling. He swallows back his nerves, and thinks of David. “I’m gay.”

The words come out clearer and steadier than he expects them to. Whatever happens next, he can be proud of that - of saying the words without a hint of shame, the way he imagines David would have.

The reaction from his parents isn’t immediate. He sees his word hit them on a delay, like in those old videos of nuclear bombs being tested out in the middle of nowhere. There’s the initial explosion, then five seconds later you see the wind rip through the treeline over a mile from the blast. 

He sees it in his mom’s face first. Her head tilts to the side curiously, like she’s only just now seeing him despite the fact that they’ve been sitting here for almost fifteen minutes, and her whole face softens. She slides her hands across the table, the same ones that lifted him up the first time he ever fell off his bike and wiped away the dirt and tears from his face, and uses them to cover his own. 

“Oh Patrick,” she says, her voice breaking on his name. “Oh my sweet boy.”

“I’m still me, Mum.” He doesn’t know why he feels the need to say it, but he does. “I’m just...this too.”

“I know that honey,” she says, and swipes a tear from the corner of her eye. “You’re my son, nothing could change that.”

She squeezes his fingers with a strength that surprises him. His heart stutters in his chest, a side effect of the adrenaline that he no longer has any use for, not when his mom is looking at him like...well, like she always has.

He turns to his father, who has remained silent so far. His face is calm, almost neutral, though Patrick can see a shine in his eyes.

“Dad?”

Clint dad lifts his hands as if to say there’s really nothing for him to say that Marcy hasn’t already. “I just want you to be happy. Are you?”

“Yeah Dad." He can feel a weight lifting off his shoulders as he says it. "I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my whole life.”

Clint nods, having heard the only thing he needed to know. “That’s good. That’s really good.” 

Patrick wonders if all fathers are endowed with the special ability to make profound understatements at critical life moments, or if his dad is just gifted that way. Not that there’s anything else he needed to hear from his father. He knows his father well enough to know that ‘that’s good’ is the small iceberg tip jutting up from the water. Beneath it is ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m proud of you’ and ‘I wouldn’t want you any other way than exactly how you are’. But why use all those words when ‘that’s good’ works just as well?

The moment is broken by Twyla arriving with their dinner. If she notices the fact that the entire Brewer table has gone teary in the past five minutes, she politely ignores it, pausing only to ask if anyone wants any ketchup or vinegar for the table. 

Marcy doesn’t touch her food right away. “Can I ask you something?” she says, her voice cautious. “I don’t know if it’s rude and of course you don’t have to answer but - ”

“Mum,” he stops her gently. “Two years ago you were helping Rachel pick out floral arrangements; I’d be surprised if you didn’t have a single question to ask right now.”

She smiles a little and seems to relax. “It’s just...is there a reason you didn’t tell us sooner? Not that you had to, or that we had some...I don’t know, _right_ to know. I’d just hate to think you felt like you couldn’t tell us.”

Clint stops with his turkey wrap halfway to his mouth, and looks at Patrick with quiet interest. 

“No Mum, it wasn’t anything like that. I wasn’t even able to say it to myself until a few months ago. Even when I ended things with Rachel, I wasn’t completely sure of how I felt. I just knew I didn’t feel the way I was supposed to about her. It took me a while to figure out the rest.”

“What happened a few months ago?” his dad asks.

“Sorry?”

“You said you weren’t able to say it until a few months ago. What changed?”

A memory of David refusing to sit on the floor of the elevator fills his mind, and he can’t help but smile. “I met someone,” he admits. “When I was in New York.”

“A man?” his mom asks, then flinches, probably thinking that was a very silly question.

“Yes,” he laughs. “A man. His name is David and, uh...he’s actually my partner. My boyfriend,” he adds, because ‘partner’ almost sounds too impersonal, like they run a business together or something.

Marcy’s brows shoot up in surprise. He feels a little bad for the emotional roller coaster he’s put them on in the course of a single meal, especially knowing that his mom thought this whole conversation was going to be about him and Rachel patching things up. Introducing David to them instead was a twist even M. Night Shyamalan could appreciate. 

“Boyfriend? Well that’s...wow. That’s wonderful. What’s he like?”

“He lives in New York?” Clint asks, probably already mentally adding miles up in his mind.

“David is...amazing. Funny and kind and patient. With me at least, less so with people who take too long to order their coffees after they’ve had five minutes to look at the menu.”

Clint chuckles at the description, and Patrick just hopes he’s doing David justice. “I wouldn’t be here talking to you right now if it weren’t for him,” Patrick admits. “He makes me feel…”

He has to pause. There’s a million ways to finish that sentence, and no one word seems like it’s enough. Safe? Loved? Right? He settles on one that he thinks is the most relevant to this entire conversation.

“He makes me feel brave. I didn’t really know anyone could make me feel like that until I met him.”

His mom is practically beaming now, even broader than she did when he and Rachel had announced their engagement. “He sounds wonderful.”

“He is. And he does live in New York, but he’s actually going to be based out of Toronto for the next six months.”

“Really?” Clint perks up a little, recalculating how far away Patrick would be from them.

“He runs an art gallery in Manhattan, but some friends of his asked him if he’d mind taking over their own gallery while they’re on family leave. It'll be good. I don’t think either of us really loved the idea of long distance, so this gives us some time to figure things out.”

“That’s lucky,” his dad says with an approving nod.

“Well I’d love to meet him,” his mother adds, finally tucking into her food. “No pressure, obviously, but it sounds like he’s important to you.”

Patrick, who already has his phone out under the table, gives a nervous little laugh. “Funny you should mention that. He’s actually in town right now, he came up to visit me for the weekend.”

“He didn’t come here with you?” Clint asks.

“Umm...so when I say he’s ‘in town’, I actually mean he’s in the car." He gestures behind him, towards the street. "Like right now. He thought this should just be the three of us - he didn’t want to impose.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Marcy tuts. “That was very sweet of him, but please tell him to come inside.”

He’s already pressed send before she's finished speaking, and a minute later he hears the door open. He turns around and sees David walking towards the table with straighter posture than he’s ever witnessed from him before. David shoots him a nervous little smile, and Patrick thinks to himself that it will be a small miracle if he manages to make it through the weekend without telling David that he loves him.

David reaches the table, and offers out his hand. “Mr. Brewer, Mrs. Brewer - it’s so nice to meet you. I’m David Rose.”

  
  



	25. David and Patrick

**May**

It becomes apparent after only a few weeks of commuting between Toronto and Schitt’s Creek that Patrick will have to either A) accept sole responsibility for traveling to David’s place every weekend or B) get the hell out of Ray’s house. He elects for option B.

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this for my sake,” David insists, though in a very half hearted way. Patrick knows he’s lying and could not, in fact, care less about what his motivations for moving are so long as it means Ray never walks in on him stepping out of the shower again, but he keeps that observation to himself. 

The apartment hunt would probably have gone much quicker if David hadn’t insisted on coming along, only to turn every listing into a Goldilocks scenario where none of them were ever ‘just right’.

The basement apartment was somehow too cold and too hot at the same time, depending on where you stood.

The fourth floor walk up outside of Bracebridge had a bathtub in the kitchen ( _No living situation should require you to bring your own walls_ , David had explained over dinner that night, not that Patrick needed any convincing).

Three different listings were shot down based solely on the size of their showers. Patrick wanted to point out that if they were searching for anything comparable to David’s shower back in New York then they would probably have to start looking for retirement homes before they found one, but even he was holding out for more than a single person stall.

At one point Stevie made a vague offer to rent one of the motel’s rooms to Patrick on a long term basis. Patrick beat David to the punch on turning that one down; something about the idea of her cleaning his sheets was just too unsettling for him.

They were about to throw in the towel completely after viewing one place that the listing agent neglected to mention didn’t actually have a toilet ( _the owner would be open to negotiation on rent_ , he’d assured them), when Ray texted Patrick that a studio had opened up in the small brick building just down the street from the library. It didn’t look like much based on the photos, but there did appear to be a toilet (and in a room that was definitely not the kitchen no less), so they agreed to check it out.

“I like the exposed brick,” Patrick says, pleasantly surprised to find the apartment has far more charm in real life than the pictures had led him to believe. It isn't much, especially compared to David’s places in New York and Toronto, but the outlets all work, the floors don't creak, and the shower could comfortably accommodate the both of them without requiring any impressive feats of gymnastics to make it work.

“Mmhmm,” David murmured, not sounding particularly sold by a few square feet of brick. “And if we ever break up and you start dating a dwarf, this closet will be perfect for them.”

He gestures at the ‘step-in closet’, as Ray had so enthusiastically dubbed it, which Patrick has to concede wouldn’t be able to hold even a portion of the sweaters David travels with, let alone the ones he has left back in the States.

“Nothing a couple trips to Ikea won’t solve,” he says. “Besides, most of my stuff can fit in one dresser - the closet is all yours.”

David gapes at him, then forces his mouth closed when Ray walks back in with some paperwork for Patrick to look over. 

“I didn’t mean _I_ needed the closet space,” he says as soon as Ray steps back into the hallway to make a call. “This is your place, it’s not like I’m going to be living here.”

“David, I fished a pair of your boxers out from under my pillow last week. Then I managed to shave half my face before realizing I was doing it with your razor - I like the beard by the way.”

David rubs at his facial hair self consciously. He'd left his razor at Patrick's last weekend and hadn't been willing to take a drug store blade to his face in the mean time. He had thus returned to Schitt’s Creek on Friday night looking far scruffier than he was usually comfortable with. He’d planned to make a beeline directly for the bathroom to correct the oversight, only to find himself waylaid by Patrick hauling him into a searing kiss when he was barely halfway through the door. 

“I appreciate the enthusiasm but you’ve got to let me clean up first,” David said, having had to practically pry Patrick off of him to get the words out. 

“Or you could stay dirty and let me bend you over that desk.”

What kind of choice was that?

It seemed like every time the thought of shaving it off crossed his mind, Patrick would find ways (vigorous, enthusiastic ways) of distracting him.

Two days later, the beard was still hanging around, and David was considering an IV drip to replenish his fluids. 

“Your feelings about the beard have been made abundantly clear, thank you very much,” he says. “What’s your point?”

“My point is that you’re going to be here all the time anyway, which means your stuff will be too. It’d be silly to think that just because your name isn’t on the lease doesn’t mean I won't need to consider how much counter space your toiletries are going to take up.”

“I could switch to travel sizes,” David offers weakly.

“You do your skincare routine twice a day, travel sizes wouldn’t last you a week.”

The point lands, though it has less to do with the size of David’s skincare products and more to do with how often he’s been staying in Schitt’s Creek. For the first couple weeks they had traded off their weekend visits, with one of them making the drive out after work on Friday. Eventually, at a point that went unacknowledged by either of them, this switched almost exclusively to David coming to stay with Patrick as opposed to the other way around. Then David’s return trips to Toronto on Sunday nights turned into Monday mornings, which then tipped into Monday afternoons, and had slowly transitioned into a daily commute between their respective homes as opposed to a weekly one.

The fact that Ray hadn’t started charging David rent was a minor miracle, though they did spring for the occasional night at the motel (they didn't specifically ask for the room with the mirror on the ceiling, but nor did they ever ask to switch). 

“Fine," David relents. "But you better have meant what you said about me getting the closet.”

Patrick humors David with a smile and leans up and pecks him on the cheek. “I’m a man of my word.”

**June**

“Mr. Rose, Mrs. Rose, thank you so much for having me. I must say, your home is absolutely stunning.”

“Thank you Paxton,” Moira crows. “We’ve certainly put a lot of work into it over the years.”

David buries his face in his hands so no one can hear him swear.

**July**

As disturbing as the stories about her family are, David finds something comforting in the sight of Twyla perking up and offering him a smile when he steps into the cafe. 

“Hey David - two patty melts, right?”

“With a side of fries and extra pickles, please and thank you.” David isn't sure if he's starting to develop Stockholm Syndrome or if he’s unconsciously lowered his standards given the lack of other options, but lately he’s found himself actually craving food from the cafe. Patrick is a fantastic cook, a role he’d taken sole responsibility for after David almost burned the apartment down in a rather disastrous attempt to make mac n’ cheese from a box, but they still called in an order to the Tropicale at least twice a week. They avoided anything vaguely ethnic sounding (which David learned the hard way had to include spaghetti carbonara and chicken quesadillas, which… _how?_ ), but as Patrick had assured him during their first visit here, anything involving meat and two slices of bread wasn’t actually half bad.

Twyla dropped a bag with two to-go containers on the counter, along with a large smoothie and box with the words _‘Cobb w/ex. bacon/no tom.’_ scrawled over the top.

“Umm, I don’t think those are mine,” David says, pointing to the smoothie and salad. “Patrick only called in the sandwiches.”

Twyla’s brows crease together in confusion. “Oh, sorry about that, I figured you were picking up your sister’s order too.”

“My what now?” He’s sure he misheard her.

“Alexis? She called in her order like, five seconds after you. Really, it’s my fault, I figured she’d meant to add it on to yours.” She reaches out to take away the offending items when David holds a hand out to stop her.

“My sister called in an order? Today? As in she’s here, in town?”

“Umm...yes?” Twyla looks a little worried, like maybe she’s said something she wasn’t supposed to. “Isn’t she here with you?”

David forces a smile on his face to mask his internal screaming. 

  
“You know what?" he asks in his most polite customer voice, which admittedly doesn't get a ton of use. "She was actually supposed to drive up here today for a visit, I just wasn’t expecting her so early.”

Twyla’s face falls a little. “Oh no, I hope I didn't screw up some kind of surprise she had planned for you.”

“Oh no, you didn’t screw up anything.” He pats her arm reassuringly. “Tell you what - I will take her food. I’ll just text her and let her know to go straight to Patrick’s place instead of stopping here.” 

He slides an extra twenty across the counter and insists she keeps the change. As he exits the cafe he walks right past his car and towards the veterinarian's office two blocks away, where he can already see his father’s black Mercedes parked at the curb. He puts the food down on the hood and pulls out his phone.

“What is it David?” He wasn’t expecting a terribly warm greeting, but there’s definitely some room for improvement there.

“Wow, haven’t even said anything and I’m already getting an attitude, how delightful.”

He hears her sigh impatiently, and decides that he's going to try to enjoy this a little. “Okay, I’m sorry, that was rude. Now what do you want?”

“Oh nothing, I was just calling to see if maybe you wanted to grab some lunch.”

“You...what? I-I-I’m not even in town right now, you know that.”

David slaps his hand to his forehead, startling an old lady walking by with her toy poodle. “Shit, you know I totally forgot you were traveling. Remind me where you went this time? It’s _so_ hard to keep track.”

“I’m in, uh...I’m in Morocco right now.”

“Morocco, how nice! Long way to go for a good Hammam spa, but totally worth it.”

There’s a long pause, in which he imagines her frantically trying to figure out how to change the subject away from the country she is very much not in at the moment and knows next to nothing about. “Totally,” she agrees, with a touch too much enthusiasm. “The ones in New York just aren’t the same. As the, uh...the ones in…”

“Morocco?” David offers brightly.

“Right, Morocco. Where I am. So...yeah. Anywho - ”

“Alexis?”

“Mmm?”

“You’re full of shit.”

“What?”

“Come outside.”

“ _What?!_ ”

“Alexis, if you could act, your reality show would have lasted for more than six episodes. Get your ass outside.”

Thirty seconds later the front door of the house attached to the vet’s office cracks open, and Alexis slinks through. She comes to a stop in front of where David is leaning against his father’s car, her arms crossed defensively. “What are you doing here?”

“Umm, I think you’ll find I’m the one who gets to ask that question right now. I’m here because my boyfriend lives here, what’s your excuse?”

She looks down, as though it’s imperative she check the condition of her pedicure at that exact moment. “Soami,” she mutters so fast he barely catches it.

“Excuse me?”

She looks up at him like it costs her great amounts of energy to do so and repeats herself, at a more human speed. “ _So am I_.”

“So are you what?”

“Visiting my boyfriend.”

David straightens a little, now positive he misheard her. “Alexis, are you dating the vet?”

She throws up her finger in shushing motion and checks over her shoulder, as though someone might come bursting out of the door at any moment.

This is rich. This is so _fucking rich_.

“You are, aren't you? You’re corrupting young Theodore. Of gelled hair and terrible puns.”

He’s trying to toe the line between pointing out the absurdity of his sister dating Ted and outright insulting him. Based on their few interactions around town Ted actually seems like a perfectly nice guy. He hasn’t met a single person who has anything bad to say about him, and most of the Creek’s residents just seem grateful that he was willing to set up shop here instead of Elmdale or Bracebridge. Questionable taste in humor aside, he’s the kind of guy you’d want to bring home to Mom and Dad. If your mom and dad weren’t Moira and Johnny Rose, that is. 

“I am, actually,” she hisses, sounding particularly offended by his disbelief. “Not that it’s any of your business,” she adds.

“I mean, given that I own the town, technically anything that takes place in it is my business. But let’s ignore that fact in favor of you explaining to me how the hell this happened.”

“Oh come on, you know I hooked up with the first time I came up here with you.”

“Yeah, ‘hooked up’ being the operative term. I was once hooked up with Zoë Kravitz at a VMA after party, but you don’t see me calling Lenny ‘Dad’ now do you?”

“Are you seriously pissed about this? Ted is like a million times nicer than any other guy I’ve ever dated. He’s sweet, he’s respectful, and he’s never once had to claim diplomatic immunity to avoid jail time. What’s your problem with him?”

“I don’t have a problem with him!” David snaps. “I have a problem with Hurricane Alexis blowing into town, breaking the heart of everyone’s favorite vet, and blowing right back out, leaving me to explain how ‘oh sorry, she just kind of does that sometimes’. You know that thing in movies, where Bruce Willis or whoever gets to look all cool by walking away from the explosion without looking back?”

“What about it?”

“Well I still have to live in the explosion after all of this is over!"

Alexis chews at her bottom lip furiously, but the rest of her body seems to deflate a little.

“I know that,” she sighs. “I’m not stupid.”

“I didn’t say you were stupid….I just," he paused, suddenly regretting how he approached this whole thing. "I may have implied that you were thoughtless.” He has the decency to look a little ashamed of himself.

“You know that’s not better right?”

“Yeah, I can hear it now. 

“I’m not here to break Ted’s heart. I really like him.” She twirls a lock of her hair nervously around one finger, something David hasn’t seen her do since high school. “I think he really likes me too.”

David can practically hear Patrick in his head, chastising him for his lack of filter. “Well…I’m not surprised. You’re surprisingly easy to like.”

Alexis eyes him suspiciously. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Yeah, well, cherish it. It’ll probably be another twenty-eight years before it happens again.”

She jabs him in the shoulder, but does it with a smile. “I promise not to screw things up here for you. Not going to lie though, I didn’t think you cared about this place that much.”

David shrugs, though it doesn’t look half as non-committal as he wants it to. “Patrick cares about the town, and I care about Patrick.” 

“You mean you love him.”

“Very much so, yup,” he says, still getting used to how easy that sort of admission comes out. In a previous chapter of his life it would have been accompanied by a stomach ache, and a desire to consume a moderate amount of wine to ease his nerves.

Alexis nods, knowing her brother well enough to appreciate that just because he said it easily, doesn’t mean he meant it lightly.

“Now that you guys know about us maybe we could all get together for a little dinner party or something? I was thinking we could get all dressed up, maybe cocktail casual, and make it, like, super cute.”

“Mmm, hard pass.”

**August**

“Be nice,” Patrick mutters under his breath, knowing David is only a few steps behind him with their bags.

“I’m always nice,” Terry says dismissively.

“I know, but - ”

“David! Good to finally meet the guy who blew my cousin straight outta the closet!”

Doug places a sympathetic hand on Patrick’s shoulder. “Bet you thought I was going to be the one to embarrass you.”

**September**

“I have an idea,” David declares one night, after they’ve already slipped under the covers and turned off the lights.

“If it’s the thing with the massager, can it wait until morning? I’m not saying no, but you have to give me some - ”

“It’s not that,” David cuts him off. Well, it could be, but he wants to get the rest of this out first. “It’s about the general store.”

“What general store?”

“The one in town. You know, Prangles?”

He feels the bed shift next to him and hears Patrick fumble around for the light switch. He hits it, casting a soft glow across the room.

Patrick rolls over to face him, eyes still half lidded with sleep. “The Schitt’s Creek General Store?”

“That’s the one.”

“What about it? I thought it closed down a couple months ago.”

“It did. I've been thinking about it for a while now and, umm...I think I’d like to buy it.”

Patrick sits up, looking considerably more awake now. “You what?”

“I want to buy it,” David repeats. “It’s one of the few perks of owning the town actually. I get first dibs to bid on any properties owned by the town that go into foreclosure. I have a three month window to make an offer before ownership defaults back to the town.”

“I didn’t even know the town owned the property in the first place.”

“Apparently it’s one of the oldest buildings in the whole county. Used to be a post office, like, a hundred and fifty years ago. They’ve sold it off to a couple different businesses over the years, but in the event of a foreclosure, the deed reverts back to them. And according to the contract my dad signed twenty years ago - ”

“More like twenty-five.”

“Whatever. Point is, I get first bite at the apple...if I want it.”

“And you do? Want it, I mean.”

“I do,” David replies, surprising himself with how sure he sounds. “I have some ideas for the space. I’d need you to take a look at them, just to make sure I’m not being completely delusional, but I think...I think it could be really good.”

Patrick stares at him with quiet astonishment, which wouldn’t be so bad if David knew what the source of the astonishment was. It could be his sudden interest in owning a small business (fair enough), or the fact that said business would be in Schitt’s Creek (again, fair). It could even be that David came up with the idea to do it all on his own (in which case, _ouch_ ). 

“How would this work?” Patrick asks carefully. “With the gallery?”

The better phrasing should be 'galleries'. Martin is coming back at the end of next month, a looming deadline that David and Patrick have successfully avoided talking about all summer. Even less talked about is David’s own gallery back in New York. Chelsea has been checking in on a regular basis, and from the sound of it has been managing things just fine on her own, rendering it to the designation of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ for David. The only times he’s really spared it much thought is when he finds himself wondering why he _doesn’t_ think of it more. It’s his business, one that he started from the ground up (okay, fine, from his dad’s bank account up), and he's spent years grinding away to make it successful. And yet most days he practically forgets it exists. 

Instead he finds himself wondering why there isn’t a single winery in the county that sells its products off site. Or why the local dairy farmers only seem to produce their artisanal cheeses in the tourist season instead of year around, when they could sell it directly to grocery stores in Elmdale or Bracebridge. Apples and berries might have peak seasons but, damn it, no one should have to wait six months for access to good brie. There are at least three businesses just outside of town that make some surprisingly decent bath and body products, most of them milk and honey based, all of which smell good enough to eat, and not a one of them has so much as a website. 

Manhattan may as well be a million miles away because all he can think about is the amount of wasted potential here, in Schitt’s Creek. It wasn’t until Roland had let him know about the general store being put up for sale that he had good cause to think of his gallery once more.

“Well, Martin is coming back in a couple weeks, so I’m about to have a lot more free time one my hands,” David says reasonably.

“And the one in New York?”

“Right...that. I think it might be time to make some changes with my gallery in New York.”

“What kind of changes?”

“For starters? Me selling it.”

Patrick’s jaw drops and David reaches over to gently nudge it closed. 

“You want to sell your gallery?” Patrick asks when he regains his faculties of speech. “For real? Do you have a buyer lined up?”

“I’m selling it to Chelsea."

“Your assistant?”

“She’s been running it for the past six months anyway, and she’s still young enough to have the patience for it. It’ll be in good hands."

He’d reached out to her last week, just trying to gauge her interest, when she’d flat out asked him how much it would cost for her to buy him out. He’d thought about how much money his dad had offered him for his initial investment, and cut it in half. She called him back two days later to tell him to check his inbox for a copy of the pre-approval for her business loan, and that the ball was in his court if he wanted to pull the trigger. Physical anatomy notwithstanding, he’d always known she had bigger balls than him anyway.

Patrick smirks at him. “Careful now, you just came dangerously close to admitting you’re old.”

“Not old,” David objects. “Just not twenty-six anymore.” He knows that as far as a lot of his acquaintances in New York are concerned, those are basically the same thing.

“Do you mind if I ask how much you’re selling it for?”

“Honestly? Pennies on the dollar compared to what it’s worth.”

His answer clearly puzzles Patrick. “Kind of a weird thing to admit to someone you just asked to look over your business plans.”

“She could never have afforded full asking. And those pennies still work out to roughly four times what the town wants for the building.” David can tell Patrick is doing some quick calculations in his head, his eyes going wide when he gets to the final numbers. “Schitt’s Creek doesn’t have a lot to brag about, but you really can’t beat the real estate prices compared to Manhattan.”

“No shit,” Patrick agrees. “You’re serious about this?”

“As a heart attack. Or...whatever the more optimistic version of that saying it.”

“This is big David. This is a very…” He trails off, unsure of whether he should finish his thought.

“What?” David presses. “It’s very what?”

“Not to freak you out or anything, but I was going to say permanent. Not that you couldn’t turn around and sell it if things don’t...I mean, if we don’t…” 

He shakes his head, not quite willing to jinx himself. He’s not a superstitious man, not by half, but nor does he like to gamble.

David turns himself around on the bed so that they’re sitting face to face, and he pulls Patrick’s hands into his lap. “If the idea of buying the store doesn’t freak me out, then I don’t think pointing out how permanent of a decision it is would either.”

“Buying the store doesn’t freak you out?”

“Oh no, it totally does.” His tone implies that that was a very silly question indeed. “But in a good way.” 

“And you want me to help you do it?”

“Mmhmm,” he hums. “Want...and desperately need.”

“Alright. I’m in.”

“Seriously?" David had expected him to be a much harder sell. "Just like that?”

“Of course,” Patrick says easily. “It saves me the trouble of having to think up a good excuse to keep you here.”

David doesn’t bother telling Patrick that he is the excuse.

**October**

Things start to move quickly once David calls Chelsea to let her know the gallery is hers, if she still wants it. It helps that her father is a real estate attorney, and that David wants nothing more than to get his name off the front door as soon as possible.

By the third week of October the funds from the sale hit his account. He puts his apartment in the West Village up for rent that same day.

**November**

“I just want you to manage your expectations,” Patrick pleads, his words falling on loving but mostly deaf ears. 

“And I think that opening in time for the Christmas shopping season is a perfectly reasonable expectation.” David puts down the paintbrush he’s holding (painting being the only physical labor he’s been willing to take on in the process of fixing up the building) and steps down off the ladder. “Shopping is going to be dead after the holidays anyway, and no one wants to line up for a grand opening in the middle of February.”

“I’d argue that lining up in December isn’t all that much more appealing either.” Patrick cocks a thumb at the front window and out onto the street, where a light dusting has already begun to fall despite the forecast not calling for snow until later in the evening. 

“It is when people are filled to the brim with the Christmas spirit of consumerism and a desire to spend time in places that smell like cinnamon and pine trees.” 

He is of course referencing the four boxes of candles that Marv had dropped off this morning, his promised ‘best sellers of the season’. The date of the grand opening has been one of their only points of contention so far. Theoretically, David’s goal of opening the doors on the first day of December is possible, assuming absolutely nothing goes wrong that knocks them off schedule in the next two weeks. But Patrick considers it his job to plan for the worst case scenario, a job that is being made all the more difficult by David’s uncharacteristic bout of optimism.

“And what if Ronnie isn’t done with the floors in time?”

“Oh I’ll be done,” comes a dry and unamused voice from the backroom. Ronnie emerges a few seconds later, carrying portable belt sander and looking less than thrilled to see Patrick. “I said I’d be done next week, so unless you got a time machine somewhere to prove otherwise, you can safely assume that I _will_ be done next week.”

“Good to see you Ronnie,” Patrick says brightly, while David mouths a ‘sorry’ over her shoulder. “Didn’t know you were back there.”

“Mmhmm,” is the only response he gets as she saunters past him towards the back of the store. 

“Thanks for the warning,” he hisses at David as soon as she’s out of sight.

“She just got back from lunch, I thought you knew!”

Ronnie was not Patrick's biggest fan. In fact, she kind of hated him. He always managed to put his foot firmly in his mouth around her, starting from the day he and David had first approached her about doing some renovation work on the store and he’d asked her if she had much experience refinishing wood floors. She’d gestured around the living room where they were sitting and asked if he thought they’d up and refinished themselves. Things hadn’t improved much from there.

Despite still being convinced that David is being a tad unrealistic when it comes to how close they were to being ready to open, Patrick has to admit that things have gone surprisingly well so far. The town had been happy to let David take the property off their hands (it helped that he hadn’t even tried to barter them down in favor of paying the full asking price, a move Patrick had objected to out of principle but was overruled on). The necessary permits and business licenses applications had been filed promptly, with every ‘t’ crossed and ‘i’ dotted - an act that had caused David to declare that he should have started hooking up with business majors a long time ago.

Patrick had refused payment for his services (at least in the form of money, it turned out he was in no way opposed to sexual favors from someone he was already dating), insisting that he wasn’t doing anything more than keeping his word to help David in any way that he could.

They’d been pleased to discover that the building had what the building inspector referred to as ‘good bones’. It definitely needed some updates, and the flooring had to be refinished after years of wear and tear, but there was nothing that had to be completely gutted. This freed up a fair amount of their budget, which turned out to be a good thing as Patrick discovered just how particular David was when it came to purchasing furnishings for the store. 

The metal shelving units left behind from the old business had been the first things to go. They were quickly replaced with hand made oak tables and coordinating shelves for the left and back walls, which David had commissioned from a Mennonite carpenter just outside of town. Patrick had taken over all communication with the man after he’d told David politely but firmly to get the hell off his land the first time he attempted to drive out to ‘supervise’ his progress. Patrick learned two things that day:

1) David has great vision but practically no chill when it comes to seeing it executed.

and

2) Mennonites can swear.

The carpenter incident had inspired some anxiety in Patrick as to how David was going to manage to get local vendors to partner with him and feature their products in his shop, but it turned out he was much more in his element in that regard. He was good at reading people; he could tell which ones needed to be charmed, which ones needed to be wined and dined, and which ones needed to see cold hard numbers to prove that signing a contract with him was very much in the best interest of their businesses. Years of coddling fussy New York artists had prepared him well, and David had yet to encounter anyone in town with quite the level of ego he was used to. Patrick imagined it was something akin to playing your favorite video game in easy mode, as opposed to the highest difficulty with one hand tied behind your back.

David places his hands on Patrick’s shoulders and forces him to look him in the eye.

“Has anything gone wrong so far?” he asks him seriously.

“Other than Mordecai refusing to take your calls? No.”

“Have any of the vendors reached out about delays in product delivery?”

“No. Most of your first orders are already in the stockroom, and the ones that aren’t should be here this weekend.”

“So is there any reason to believe that opening on December first is completely out of the question?”

“Technically...no.” He should have realized he’d lost this fight before it even began.

“Then what’s the problem?” 

“There isn’t one, yet. But I feel like I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t plan for the eventuality that something will go wrong here.”

“Well as your business partner, I appreciate your diligence. But as your boyfriend, I need you to be about twenty-five percent less Cameron and fifty percent more Ferris right about now.”

“So in this scenario you would be - ”

“Sloane, obviously.”

“Of course.”

**December**

They make a polite but early exit from the Rose family Christmas party, claiming Patrick has to be up early to FaceTime with his family while they open presents. In truth he does have plans to do exactly that, but not until around noon.

They go back to Patrick’s apartment, warm up a tray of butter tarts Marcy sent them the week prior, and pour two glasses of wine.

They make love, sweet and unhurried, on the high thread count sheets that David had given him as an early gift, though they both know it was as much a gift for himself as it was for Patrick.

It is, Patrick notes as he drifts off to sleep, a decided improvement over last year’s Christmas.

**New Years Eve**

This is the first New Years in years that David hasn’t spent in New York. There is no chic party to go to, or an even more chic after party to bail on the first one for. No last minute shopping for a new outfit, no stalking the room looking for someone respectable to kiss at midnight. David already has someone perfectly respectable to kiss at midnight. He respects him so much, he's probably going to sleep with him afterwards.

They decide to go for comfort over style. Patrick makes them pizza from scratch, something David didn’t think was a thing people actually knew how to do, and they purchase the most expensive bottle of champagne they could find for sale in Elmdale ($34.80, after tax). Dessert is a tin of Christmas cookies Jocelyn Schitt gifted to them over the holiday. She might not know how to dress herself, but it turns out the woman can bake.

“You sure you don’t want to stop in at Jake and Stevie’s thing tonight?” David asks as Patrick tops off his glass. He doesn’t actually want Patrick to say yes; he’s already in sweatpants and has about three different quilts draped over him (the heating system in Patrick’s apartment leaves a lot to be desired), but he feels like he should offer anyway.

“Nah, I’m good staying in,” Patrick replies, joining him on the couch. “Besides, I’m like ninety percent sure that ‘thing’ is technically an orgy.”

“So is that a blanket no to all orgies, or just this one in particular?”

Patrick rolls his eyes at him, but David notices that he didn’t actually say ‘no’. 

He offers Patrick a quilt as he joins him on the couch. “I just want to point out that if you’d let me start When Harry Met Sally when I wanted to, the real life countdown would have matched up perfectly to the one in the movie.”

“You’ve seen it a thousand times, it’s not going anywhere.” Patrick flicks over to the CBC live feed of Times Square, where roughly one million people have packed themselves into the street like sardines. “You know you really ruined this thing for me. Now I can’t watch the ball drop without wondering how many of those people are wearing adult diapers.”

“I destroyed your innocence in more ways than one this time last year,” David notes wistfully.

“I’m sorry, 'destroyed my innocence'?” Patrick says incredulously. “You know I wasn’t a virgin when we met, right?”

“Ah yes, I do recall you regaling me with the tales of your sexual escapades in the elevator. There was, how did you put it…‘three painfully awkward one night stands over the course of four years’?” He pops a piece of shortbread in his mouth with a satisfied grin.

“So you can remember that almost verbatim but you still haven’t called the electrician about rewiring the stockroom with overhead lights?”

“There’s only so much storage capacity in my brain, I have to prioritize. Now shush, the ball is about to drop.”

He doesn’t really care about ushering in the new year, but Mariah is set to perform Auld Lang Syne after the countdown, and he’s excited to watch her redeem herself after the lip syncing incident of 2016. 

He’s so excited, in fact, that he doesn’t notice Patrick isn’t watching the ball drop at all; he’s watching David. He also doesn’t notice that as the crowd reaches the last numbers of the countdown, Patrick reaches behind his seat cushion and pulls out a thin black velvet box. He doesn’t notice a damn thing until the crowd screams ‘zero!’, the ball drops, and Patrick is down on one knee in front of him.

“W-w-what are you doing?” he stammers, already trying to untangle himself from the cocoon of blankets.

“Something either really stupid or really brave. Maybe both.” His own voice is uneven, but still manages to sound more sure of himself than David does on his best days. “David, this night last year was probably the most important night of my entire life, because it’s the night you became part of it. Even when we were apart, I knew in my heart that it wasn’t going to be forever. You were too important to me, too permanent. I knew there was no version of my future that didn’t have you in it.”

“Oh my God,” David chokes out, unable to help himself. 

“And the only reason I didn’t say any of this to you at the time was because we’d only known each other for a couple days and I didn’t want to look like an absolute crazy person. Even now, we’ve only been together for eight months, so this might still qualify as crazy, but I figured we could always do a long engagement, or maybe wait until - ”

“Patrick?” David feels bad for interrupting but he recognizes when his boyfriend is veering into rambling territory.

“Yeah?” 

“Please just ask me.”

“Oh, umm, sure. Good call.” He opens the box, revealing four gold rings, perfect replicas of the silver ones David wears on his right hand. “David Rose, will you marry me?”

David lets out a choked sob, underneath which Patrick distinctly hears the word ‘yes’, and throws his arms around him. They stay like that for a long time, a teary pile of arms and legs and blankets on the floor of Patrick’s living room, as Mariah Carey sings them into the new year.

**July**

“When Patrick and David asked me to officiate their wedding, I was surprised. Flattered, but surprised. You see, when you spend most of your childhood giving a kid noogies, you don’t really expect that one day he’s going to turn around and ask you to conduct one of the most important moments of his life.”

There’s a polite laugh from the crowd, and Terry visibly relaxes.

“Add on the fact that I’m neither particularly religious nor romantic, and you can probably see why I thought myself an odd choice. The religion part ended up not being much of an impediment. The Universal Life Church cares more about your access to internet connection than it does your knowledge of the Bible. According to their website, I’ve now joined the ranks of Lady Gaga, Benedict Cumberbatch, and The Rock in my ability to officiate weddings, three names I never thought I would ever hear, let alone say, during a wedding ceremony.”

“And as for the romantic part, apparently I’m being given a pass for my participation credit. You see, a little over a year and a half ago, Patty - sorry, Patrick - came to me and asked if I could help get him a quick flight to New York for the New Years holiday. The trip seemed cursed from the outset. The forecast was dreary, the hotel had a negative two star rating, and the flight I sent him on involved middle seats that did not recline, both ways. But still, Patrick thanked me for the favor. Partly because he’s a good person, but also because he’s Canadian, and a lack of manners is akin to treason.”

“The real cherry on top came on New Years Eve, three hours to midnight, when Patrick got stuck in a hotel elevator. And the reason I get to take credit for him being stuck in that elevator, as opposed to apologizing for it, is because he got stuck in there with David.”

David and Patrick beam at one another while Alexis quickly wipes a tear from her eye with a tissue she stashed in her bouquet. 

“Now I wasn’t there to witness this of course, but considering where we’re all standing at the moment, I think we can safely assume they hit it off in there.”

More laughter, and a large sniffle from the direction of David’s father.

“Shakespeare may have composed about a thousand different words on the subject of love, but I don’t think he ever got as close as the Everly Brothers when it comes to describing it: Love is strange. It finds you when you least expect it, not caring in the slightest about how inconvenient it might be for you. It makes you stupid. It makes you brave. It makes you alive. It opens up spaces inside of you that you didn’t know existed, spaces that become permanent parts of you. The only choice that’s left up to us is who we allow inside those spaces. We are gathered here today because David and Patrick have made that choice for one another.”

She clears her throat, her own voice having grown thick with each passing second. She glances at Patrick and gives him a quick wink.

“Now, I have been asked to keep this wrapped up to a tight fifteen. I’d previously planned on closing with a bit of crowd work, maybe some light improv, but in the interest of time I think I will instead give the floor over to David and Patrick, who have written some vows that they would like to share.”

They turn towards each other, and bring their hands together. There’s a long beat of silence in the tent.

“David,” Patrick whispers. “You were supposed to go first.”

“Oh shit,” David says, not even attempting to whisper. Johnny shakes his head ruefully while Clint produces an audible snort from the front row. David, now turning a rather brilliant shade of red, stands a little taller and looks into Patrick’s eyes.

“Patrick Brewer, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I say that as someone who has spent a good portion of my life not knowing how to recognize a good thing when I had it. I had all these ideas of what I thought I wanted, and what I thought I deserved. And then you came along, and I realized just how much I had been selling myself short. I didn’t know someone could make me feel so safe. I didn’t know someone could treat me with so much kindness and patience and grace. I didn’t know that someone could make me feel like I deserved all of those things. And so if I have to make a vow to you today, it’s this: I will spend the rest of my life making sure that I continue to deserve those things from you. I vow to be the kind of person who is worthy of everything that you do for me, and everything that you are to me. I vow to show my gratitude, each and every day, for the fact that you were once too lazy to take the stairs.”

Patrick lets out a sound that’s halfway between a laugh and a sob. He feels a tap on his shoulder and before he can turn around he feels Stevie shoving a handkerchief into his hand. He’d be embarrassed if he weren’t positive that half the crowd’s attention wasn’t currently diverted by the choked heaves currently coming out of Moira’s mouth. 

He does his best to clear his face and shoves the square of fabric into his pocket. He squeezes David’s hand tightly, and takes a deep breath.

“David, the list of things I owe you is too long to read out. We would be here well into the night and all of the crab cakes you ordered would go waste.”

David grins ruefully - they’d gone through four different caterers before finding one that didn’t use imitation crab meat, a hill David had been prepared to die on. 

“So instead, I will just have to tell you what I know. I know that the moment I met you was the moment it felt like my life really began; everything else became preamble. I know that I feel more like myself with you than I do with almost anyone else. I know that anything in life worth having is worth fighting for, and protecting. I know that you have shown me how to be kind to myself, and how to accept kindness from others. And I know that everything in this world, good and bad, is better when I have you to share it with. I vow to take care of you the way you have taken care of me, to love you in all the ways you have shown me it is possible to love someone, and to never attempt to spread cold butter on my bagels, for as long as we both shall live.”

There is kissing and dancing and cake.

There are drunken toasts and an ill-fated attempt at starting a conga line.

Alexis throws elbows to catch the bouquet.

Stevie throws elbows to avoid it.

And at the end of the night, there is only David and Patrick, and a life stretched out before them.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone for the seemingly endless amount of support you've given me while writing this. It didn't start out this way, but writing became an unexpected coping mechanism through a very weird time in this world. David and Patrick kept me sane. The best I could possibly hope for was that this story was a small pause from the chaos for some of you. 
> 
> I won't say stories are the best medicine because, well, _medicine_ is the best medicine. But stories help.


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